A Paw in Each World
by LilithBrandon
Summary: AU. Being the new supernatural creature in town isn't always a good thing. Vampires to the east of me and wolves to the south, with me stuck between. To top that, there's this pixie vampire that won't stop rambling long enough for me to get a word in edgewise. Bella/Alice. Thercougar!Bella. Not a rehash of canon.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Twilight isn't mine. This story takes place in an AU, but most people will still remain in character. Bella, for obvious reasons will be OOC, but not insanely different. Your thoughts or comments are always welcome.

With a sigh of relief I stepped out of the small commuter plane from Seattle to Port Angelus that brought an end to the scent assault from Hades. I honestly didn't think I could take much more of the contained air that spoke of the hundreds of people that had ridden before me.

Everyone that goes anywhere leaves some of their selves behind. It's just a matter of quantity. A hair, some cologne, errant pheromones, intestinal gases, or a myriad number of other things all take root in the world around me. Humans don't really have to worry about most of them since their ability to smell is usually reserved for the more potent of odorous phenomena. For me and others like me it's a whole other story.

Hitching my backpack up on my shoulder, I scanned the concourse past security for Charlie, my biological father. I make that distinction for a specific reason. For the vast majority of my life, I didn't know he existed. Renée, my mother, impressed upon me at an early age that I was a surprise baby. In layman's terms I was a mistake, a lapse in judgment during a sexual interlude, originally unwanted; any of those will do.

That didn't mean she didn't love me – well, right up until the moment she found out I carried a specific recessed gene of Charlie's that was only supposed to be passed down through the males of his family. Up until then, I was the light of her life. She got married to Charlie, gave birth to me in Forks, Washington, and then six months later found out what her husband hid in his DNA. After that there was a divorce whereupon Renée decided that she'd had enough of the never ending clouds and rain, venturing to Phoenix, Arizona.

It was on my eighteenth birthday that I found out my entire life was a lie.

~O~

"Isabella," the cop said as he measured me up with his eyes.

Being what I am, I could tell that those blue eyes of his were actually colored contacts. If only I was lucky enough to be able to follow in those specific genetic footsteps.

"Charlie."

He was still in his Chief of Police uniform, hands on his hips, salt in his peppered hair, and mirrored sunglasses hanging from the left pocket of his poofy green jacket. It was the perfect cop stereotype. I almost felt like hiding my stash even though I didn't have any on me.

Gesturing to my pack he said. "You got everything?"

I shrugged. "Suitcase."

His eyes shifted to the people walking past. I could see he was measuring them up. It was a cop thing I suppose.

He grunted. "I'll be out front, waiting."

That was before he turned back around and headed out of sight.

What can I expect out of a father that hadn't seen me for seventeen and a half years – indifference? One would think that meeting your adult daughter for the first time would warrant a hug at least. Maybe it was the wide tinted circular glasses I wore to hide my eyes. Maybe I wasn't normal looking enough.

It's true; I'm abnormal, at least recently.

Two weeks ago I was five-feet tall with dull brown eyes and limp mousy brown hair. That's changed somewhat. When I was a little girl I wished upon every shooting star, every birthday candle, and after every penny I'd thrown in random wishing wells that I didn't look the way I did. Being the shortest, plainest, and palest girl in my class tended to cement me into a certain social strata, and it wasn't one of the good ones.

I had tried hair dye which never held more than three or four showers. Colored contacts irritated my eyes and still do. My skin was too sensitive to lay out in the sun or even tanning beds. In truth, I had the worst luck in the world. If there was something to trip over, I'd find it. If anyone around me was sick, I'd catch it. Forget getting my license – I put my driving instructor in the hospital. That's why people tended to skirt around me whenever I was spotted.

Bad Luck Bella; that was one of the nicer things I'd been called.

Once Charlie disappeared, I made my way to the luggage carousel and pulled off a battered light blue Samsonite and had my claim check verified while being ogled by the security guard. That earned him a nasty scowl from me.

I wasn't used to my newfound appearance. That was one of the reasons I had so little in terms of luggage; nothing fit. Renée's last gift to me was a debit card for new clothes. Then she wiped her hands of me. Who was I to tell her two hundred dollars didn't go a long way in terms of girls clothes. She knew. She just didn't care any longer. I was Charlie's problem, not to mention an adult, so I could buy new ones when I arrived in Forks.

My suitcase went into the back seat of the police cruiser and my backpack, along with myself, sat in the front. We were thirty minutes into our drive before he bothered to speak another word to me.

"Your house is set up on the west side of Forks."

I could feel my eyes starting to well-up. Being passed from one parent to another and then shuffled off to an entirely different house had been the tipping point for me.

"Your mother sent me a list and everything is there," he continued. "The utilities are turned on and the cupboard is stocked."

My lips pressed together as I stared out the side window willing myself not to break down right there. I wouldn't give either of my parents the pleasure any longer.

"She said that you don't have your license."

I ignored him since in thirty minutes he'd be ignoring me.

"Bella."

Then I heard a sigh before a thick manila envelope landed on my lap startling me. Looking down, I glanced at it before sending Charlie a quizzical glare.

"Open it up. It's your new life."

I started to say something but stopped myself. Being a sarcastic jerk only took me so far, and whether I liked it or not I needed my father for at least for the foreseeable future. So I undid the clip and slid the contents in my lap. My eyes shot up when I saw a new drivers license, a passport, a birth certificate, and a number of other things.

"You'll find your coordination issues disappearing over the next month. So I got you a car. It's not new, but it runs and it'll get you where you need to go."

My mouth fell slightly open as he continued with what sounded like a pre-planned spiel.

"Your medical records show all the usual childhood illnesses, nothing major. Since you can't get sick anymore you probably won't need them, but I like to be thorough in case you need to leave the country when the time comes. Your bank book is in there too. I gave you half of what I've got, so take it easy until it's built back up again."

I swallowed at what he was saying as I flipped through all the mess to find a checkbook. Opening it, I saw the amount that was just in the checking account. That didn't include savings which was on another register.

"Ch-Charlie…."

I didn't know what to say. Seeing that he'd just set me up for at least the next three or four decades made my heart clench.

Another sigh sounded from his side of the car.

"Look, Bella, I know I'm not the father that you were expecting. God knows that I shouldn't be anyone's father much less a young lady's."

He let that trail for a few seconds.

"We're solitary creatures. I tried the marriage thing with your mom, but you see how that worked out. I think it's best if we were separate. That way I don't drive you off too."

I sniffed and ran my hand up my nose to get rid of the dribbles that were starting right after a couple of tears ran down my face.

"So…," I started before sniffing again. "You actually want to know me?"

That seemed to stump him for a moment. "Uh, that's the reason you're here isn't it?"

The insecurity that had been bred into me for eighteen years wasn't something that I could let go of at a moment's notice.

"I guess. I…."

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Look, something you need to understand is that men and women of our kind don't really get along very well outside of the… um, bedroom. That's why you've got your place and I've got mine."

My face started flushing with heat at the mere thought of sex, not to mention discussing it with a complete stranger, dad or not.

"I figure we can meet up at the local diner and I can go over everything you need to know, or any questions you might have. That way we don't get on each other's nerves."

I nodded my head and wiped away at my face. "That's cool. It's probably a good idea."

Charlie's shoulders relaxed and I saw the tension in his face start to slip away. "Good."

We drove on in silence for another twenty minutes before I saw the lights of the small town through the trees. We slowed and Charlie pointed out a small two story house.

"That's mine there if something comes up and you need me in the middle of the night."

The front lawn was small and wet, but kept up fairly well. Once the cruiser picked up speed again and entered the town proper he pointed out the police station and the diner that we'd meet at the following evening for dinner.

"One thing you need to know about Forks is that we're not the only supernatural things here."

My eyes widened briefly for the spot reveal. "We're not?"

"The Cullens, right down the road from you, are vampires."

When my breath caught, Charlie looked over at me. "Don't worry. They're vegetarians. They only drink animal blood and we taste like ass… uh, sorry. I mean we don't taste good so they won't be bothering you. I only told you because you might smell them when you go hunt. Just try to stay out of their way. They're good people mostly. Their youngest, Alice, is the one that volunteered to fill your wardrobe."

Vampires doesn't usually equate to good people. At least the ones in most fantasy novels don't anyway.

"Vampires that like to shop for people they don't know?"

Charlie nodded. "Yup. They're just as strong as me and you, but you're faster and come equipped with built in claws and teeth. You can tell the good ones from the bad by the color of their eyes. Gold is good, red is bad."

"Vampires," I whispered with disbelief.

"Werewolves too… well, shape-shifters really, but they phase into wolves much like we do as cougars. They usually stick to the reservation. I'll show you the borderlines. Whatever you do don't cross them until I introduce you to their pack."

"Werewolves? How will I know where the line is before you show me?"

Charlie shrugged. "Just stay north of 110 and you'll be fine. The res doesn't start for a few miles after your place."

Wonderful; I'm brand new into town and I get stuck living right between two supernatural horrors. Sure Bella, don't worry about a thing. What could go wrong?

It seemed as if I was riding a rollercoaster of emotion for the last hour. On one hand I turn into a feline freak whenever I get hungry; I just met a father that I didn't know existed until two weeks ago; said father treats me like I'm an inconvenience, and then turns right around and gives me a fortune only to stick me literally on the wrong side of the tracks among things I'd only read about in horror stories. This discludes me being one of the aforementioned horror story creatures. And to top it all off I start off my senior year in high school in only two days.

Yeah, my life is a peach.

~O~

Charlie was right; the house was pretty much set up. It was a three bedroom single story with a basement surrounded by dense forest. If I didn't know the house was there I'd have never found it. Everything was either brand new or freshly cleaned, mostly the latter. The living room had dark wood flooring mostly covered with a large area rug with a couch and a love seat, no coffee table. The kitchen was moderately well stocked with a lot of high protein foods.

That was something I had yet to get used to. I wouldn't call myself a vegetarian, but I rarely ate meat, maybe a chicken salad every once in a while. Ever since the change, I couldn't get enough, and meat is expensive. That's why I had to supplement, about once a week, with more natural ways, mainly hunting. That was included in Charlie's initial briefing over the phone when Renée called him to break the news. That's when she lost it.

My mother could forgive me growing ten inches in less than a week. She could even forgive me gaining two additional cup sizes, but the idea that I turned into a giant cat and had to bring down a full grown buck or its equivalent so I could eat almost the entire thing raw, was where she drew the line of acceptability. Hence, the boot to the road.

One of the smaller bedrooms was set up as an office, with a nice work area and a pretty decent laptop and printer setup. The other had a double bed and a single chest of drawers that I supposed would be a guest room. Though who I'd ever invite to stay the night was beyond me. I could just see that conversation.

_Here's the bedroom and if you hear any growling be sure to lock your door, and do not, under any circumstances, feed the kitty. _

The master bedroom was large, at least three times the size of the one I previously inhabited. The bed was king sized and quite soft, which I liked. There was an armoire and a large dresser, not to mention a vanity. Everything was done up in cherrywood and earth tones. I quite liked the warmth and knew immediately that Charlie had nothing to do with the decorating. He was obviously a simple man with muted tastes. Not that I was much different, but I did go out of my way to make sure I was comfortable in the evenings.

The biggest reason I knew it wasn't him was because of the sweet scent in the air that reminded me of amusement parks, funnel cakes to be more specific. I don't know the ingredients, but it always made my mouth water as a child. It was everywhere in the bedroom, but most especially in the closet.

My eyes widened at the amount of clothes hanging in the walk-in. They were separated by outfit with the appropriate shoes underneath. That was the biggest joke, because half of those shoes consisted of a heel height that I wasn't comfortable with.

When I just started off High School I wanted to be taller, so I tried out three and four inch heels. One, they hurt after about thirty minutes of wear and two I literally broke my ankle falling down half a flight of stairs. Needless to say, I stayed with flats, ballet slippers, and running shoes ever since.

"Well, obviously, this Alice person has never met me before," I said to nobody.

I chuckled at the little Post-it notes that had everything marked down by date of when I was supposed to wear it.

"And she's apparently quite anal as well."

I had to admit though there were some really nice looking outfits. I wouldn't have even considered wearing anything so expensive before. Mostly I was a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl by necessity. Renée was lucky if she made all the monthly bills on time much less supply me with enough money to buy leather pants… and was that a corset? Whatever!

The Monday, October 2nd outfit was more my style if I had the money and body – I had no excuse for the latter anymore: Burberry London jersey leggings, the taffeta trim wool tank was perfect as a top, and the black booties with a moderate one inch heel I could live with.

Alice had good tastes for some things. For others, I had severe doubts. Some of the stuff I didn't know if I had the nerve to wear. Yes, I now had the body for it, but my personality screamed NO freaking way!

~O~

The car was a Jeep Wrangler with mud tires on it. Considering how I drive that was probably a good thing. I could definitely see me sliding off into a ditch somewhere and not being able to get out. With this thing, off-roading, even by accident, seemed to be encouraged.

The high school supposedly had about eight hundred kids in it… total. The school I was at in Phoenix had 1300 in my senior class alone. Needless to say I was about to be exposed as the new kid with a vengeance; a school where literally everyone knew your name, and your personal business.

Why exactly did I move here again?

The parking lot was busy as I eased the Jeep into a vacant place without crashing into anything at all for the entire trip. It appeared that Charlie was right about one thing. My coordination seemed to be on the rise. Now if I can make it through one day without making a spectacle out of myself I can call it a successful venture.

I killed the engine and slipped the keys into one of many zipper pockets of my messenger bag before slipping the strap over my shoulder and jumping out. It made such a difference to have long legs. My decent to the ground was mere inches instead of drop I'd normally experience.

"New girl!"

Three guys waved from across the parking lot as I flicked my head to the side to see my first official welcoming party. Instead of encouraging them, I just gave a short nod in response. Charlie was right about another thing: we were loners. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate a friendship of most kinds, but I didn't really want to be the center of attention. Too many things were expected from popular people.

They had to surround themselves with others of the same caliber; they had to watch what they eat, what they wear, how they spoke, how they treated others. It was just too much and I wasn't really interested in being the center of attention. I just wanted a few friends unlike the solitary life I had before.

As I made my way up the front walk a dozen or so conversations filled my ears. It was one of the downsides to having enhanced senses. Sometimes you just weren't meant to hear what goes on around you.

"Get a load of those legs and that ass!"

It took a decent amount of restraint not to swivel around and call the blond boy out on what he said, but I shouldn't have been able to hear it so I was limited on options. Either ignore it or do something about it later. Not that I minded all _that_ much. After being a homebody for the last dozen years it was nice to be ogled just a bit. My ego was doing a little backflip and for once it wasn't landing on its face.

"Isabella Swan," I said to the lady at the front office. "It's my first day."

She looked up at me over her bifocals. "I've got your paperwork right here, honey. You'll need to take off your glasses inside the building though."

I licked my lips and then raised my red tinted lenses. I could hear her breath catch quite loudly and her own eyes widen when she saw the crimson color of mine.

"I wear them because most people get freaked out about the color and it causes disruptions in class."

"Wh… wha…," she sputtered.

With a mild smile I slide them back on. "It's a rare genetic defect. The blood vessels in my eyes leak into the irises. They used to be a light blue until I hit puberty. Then boom, evil eyes."

Her gaze dropped to the desk in obvious embarrassment for her reaction. "Yes, well. Let me write a note for your teachers."

~O~

AP English, Government, and Physics crawled by since I'd already covered the material. At least I wasn't going to be behind because of the move. When I made it to the snack bar in the cafeteria, I ordered three hamburgers and found my way to a corner table where nobody was sitting at the moment. Taking the time to transfer the meat from two of the burgers onto just the one made it look like I was a weirdly picky eater. The thing was, all I wanted was the beef, but I didn't want to look really freaky. As it was, all I was eating was a triple burger and two buns. Don't worry; they were the thin kind of patties.

It tasted way too overcooked, but eatable.

Halfway through lunch there were several aborted attempts by various males to approaching my table, but with a mild glare from me they just waved and went about their business. I felt somewhat sorry for them, but I wasn't looking for a boyfriend and at the moment I had no desire to be hit on. Maybe it was that time of month or something.

My cycle had been totally thrown off when I changed, so I was already ten days late. Not that there was any chance of me being pregnant. I'd actually have to be having sex for that to happen. Nope, ol' Bella still had her V-card. It was pathetic, I know. Most of the girls I knew in Phoenix had cashed theirs in when they were fifteen or sixteen. Me, I thought I'd be a spinster petting my three dozen cats and talking to myself clear into my dotage. Of course I'm a dude magnet now.

One would think that when having lived all of my life as a social and physical underachiever that I'd be living the high life and taking advantage of what had been given to me. Sorry, but my life isn't a movie or a bad supernatural teen romance novel. The truth was that I was still the same person. I had all the same hang-ups as I did when I was barely five feet tall sporting A-cups.

I wanted nothing more than to find the perfect person that didn't care about how I looked or that I had the habit of sporting bruises up and down my forearms from falling down or slamming into things haphazardly. The problem was that I didn't have those issues anymore. It had been almost a week since I'd last felt like a rampaging uncoordinated idiot. However, the thoughts were still in the back of my mind.

My life is so very strange.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement of the female variety as a curly blonde haired girl approached and sat down without so much as a by your leave. She wasn't anything to write home about, much like I used to be. Plain would describe well: loose clothing, a little on the small side, her hair pulled back with an Alice band to keep it out of her face, and very short unpolished nails.

She glanced at me briefly before arranging her salad and pulling out a paperback from her backpack. It was almost surreal. I tongued a piece of gristle from my teeth and smirked as I finished my burger and cleaned up the mess I'd made. Afterward, I removed the small iPad from my messenger bag and shot off a final email to Renée letting her know I arrived and was still alive. She might not have wanted me in her life anymore, but that was her decision. I didn't want to leave.

With that done, I pulled up the spreadsheet I was working on over the weekend after I'd settled in. It was everything I had learned from Charlie during our first dinner.

I'd set up three different sheets on shapeshifters, vampires, and Thercougars. That was the condensed version of my race. The technical term was therianthrope. At first I thought I was a werecougar, but Charlie told me that was incorrect.

You have your typical werewolf, named after Lycaon, King of Arcadia, from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Weres of all kinds are ruled by the lunar cycle and can only change forms during the full moon. They're also quite insane and kill without remorse or much of any other kind of emotion except rage. They're your atypical horror monster.

Shapeshifters have the initial ability to change into whatever type of creature they want, but they also have a tendency to be steered in one direction, hence the wolves of the Quileute Indians. They could just as easily have become bears if they didn't already have a connection with wolves from their folklore.

Therianthropes are simply human to animal shifters; they could change back and forth into one form only, which was dictated by genetics. Charlie was a cougar, so that was our only choice at all. There are other types out there, but like Charlie and me we are all very rare. He only knew about three other people in the US, only one of which had a son. So, I guess that would make four technically.

Most of the information session concerned the very basics of the wolves and vampires, what I needed to know to survive in Forks until I met them. Everything else was all about little ol' me.

The warning bell sounded to alert the students that lunch was over. The blonde hastily packed her book away and stalled twice before giving me a nervous smile before leaving. I stashed my iPad and prepared myself for another few hours of school.

~O~

Charlie wouldn't come in my house.

"You'll have trouble sleeping with more than one scent hanging in the air," was his excuse. "I'll wait here."

Nudity was still something that I had a major problem with. However, it's really difficult to not totally destroy my clothes when I phase. The trouble comes because of the end result; even spandex can't contain a cougar the size of a large horse. Believe me, I tried.

What Charlie suggested was to convert a fanny pack using a stretchable strap that could hang around my neck while I was phased. In that pack would be a hundred dollars in cash in one pocket and my biking outfit in the other. It was made out of nylon and Lycra – one of the Speedo models in black with purple racing stripes – so it fit snugly inside. I would look odd wearing it, but it covered all the things that needed to be covered and provided me with cash if needed. I suggested a cell phone as well, but he let me know that sometimes the small packs don't make it through the night.

Anyway, I retreated into the house and stripped out of my clothes, set the pack loosely around my neck and phased.

There's no pain when this happens. I take that back. The first time it happened I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin, but that could have just been because of the situation I was in at the time. After that, it was smooth and uneventful. One second I was a human girl and the next a cat girl.

I took a second to get my bearings, smelling my surroundings and the light scent of Charlie at my front door, before padding out through the living room and the front door where he waited.

"You need to get used to it sometime, Isabella. There's nothing to be ashamed of especially from me."

I hacked in annoyance. It's better than a growl, because I wasn't angry, just embarrassed. Nobody, barring a doctor had ever seen me naked, even Renée ever since I'd turned seven.

To prove his point, Charlie started stripping out of his shorts and t-shirt right in front of me. I immediately sprang off the porch and retreated to the edge of the forest. There are simply some things that a daughter shouldn't ever see. Trying my best to scrub my mind of the images of Charlie's chiseled abs from my brain was a fruitless effort. No, I didn't have the hots for my dad. It's not like I'm from Hollywood or anything.

A few moments later a shiny black haired cougar padded up beside me. That was one difference we had from natural cougars other than our sheer size. Most mountain cats in the area, and though most of the United States, were tan colored. We were black and often mistaken for mutant panthers. We weren't panthers. Neither were we jaguars, leopards, or tigers. We all may come from the same genetic Family Felidae, but we split from there into Genus Puma and Genus Panthera.

That's as far as I got in the technical aspect of what I was, at least my cat side. There was a whole mixing of the species that proved to be beyond my scientific knowledge. Considering I only had the equivalent of a high school education I thought I was doing fairly well.

Charlie and I spent the first few hours running along the Quileute border so he could show me where not to go hunting. South of that line was wolf territory and while they wouldn't attack on sight, Charlie assured me they would let their displeasure be known. Supposedly he had a friendship with one of their tribe, one Harry Clearwater. They were fishing buddies. Since Charlie was only one cougar and the Chief of Police, the wolves didn't feel threatened.

He only entered their land in his human form and out of respect never phased on the reservation. If I wanted to be treated with the same courtesy then I had to follow suit. Judging from the unmitigated wet dog stench that permeated the soil along our route I didn't think that would ever pose a problem.

When we reached a turn-off road that led south Charlie phased back into his human form, much to my delicate sensibilities.

_Oh God! Naked Charlie! Gag!_

Turning my head, I hacked again in disgust. He only chuckled.

"Phase back and get into your outfit. We're meeting some of the pack so they can get your scent."

With that thought, I ran into the tree line and phased back. My fanny pack was still whole and only moderately scratched up from the brush I'd run into through our trip. I took out my Speedo biking outfit and slipped it on. The trouble with it was the skintight material left absolutely nothing to the imagination and that warred against years of ingrained modesty. Needless to say, my face was on fire as I made my way back out onto the road to find Charlie in a pair of seventies style running shorts and a tight tank. If I didn't know any better I would say he was flaming gay and heading to a bathhouse or something.

Again, gag!

"Is there something you want to tell me, Charlie?"

He looked down at his outfit. "What?"

"You know they make a guy's version of this that's infinitely more heterosexual. You look like you're trolling for guys in that outfit. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's your thing I mean."

He frowned and looked down again. "I've been wearing this for decades."

I nodded and gave him a sympathetic look. "It shows. Look, uh, straight guys don't really show so much leg these days, especially with a tank that's so tight. You look like you need a pair of green and orange striped tube socks to go with it, and that went out in the early eighties."

Charlie's face fell in annoyance. "I liked the eighties."

"Hence the porno mustache; I get that."

Before I had a chance to add anything else he cut me off. "Hey, if Burt Reynolds can make this mustache look good then I can."

"Who?"

I think I was annoying him even more. "Smokey and the Bandit, Deliverance, Cannonball Run… none of these rings a bell?"

Honestly, I thought he was about to have a fit. "Charlie… just let me buy you a new outfit. Trust me; all the MILFs of Forks will thank me if they see you in it."

"What's a MILF?"

"Uh… it's probably better if I don't explain."

He narrowed his eyes at me like he was becoming the butt of some teenage joke. I'm virtually positive that was the same glare he gave kids he caught while they were speeding or participating in a little underage drinking. Luckily we were interrupted by the sound of several four legged creatures approaching at high speed. It took most of my restraint not to phase and make a break for home; either that or attack, and I was trying to stay on everyone's good side for the moment.

Three horse-sized wolves bounded out of the tree line and came to a halt as their claws dug into the dirt by the road. Once they seemed to have caught sight of us the big black one kind of nodded at Charlie before turning around and disappearing again. The other two paced along the road looking annoyed. I could easily tell by the sub-vocal growling coming from their throats.

"Did we do something to tick them off?" I asked as I kept a very close eye on them.

Charlie shook his head. "Cougars and wolves aren't exactly bosom buddies in nature, kiddo. It's their natural instinct they're fighting. If they were really pissed off they'd be tearing up the ground and showing their teeth."

Before anything else was said, a large Native American guy in his late twenties, I'd guess, came strolling out from the trees only wearing a pair of surf shorts. I noted the defined muscles and large tattoo on his shoulder. I wasn't one for native art so I had no idea what it was supposed to symbolize.

"Charlie," he said as he approached and the two wolves sat their haunches on either side of him. It made me think that this guy was the one in charge, their Alpha.

Cougars didn't have that kind of pack ore leadership structure. Like Charlie said before, we were solitary creatures. I naturally looked up to him because of his experience and because I was still an intelligent being. However, I didn't look to him to tell me what to do.

"Sam, this is my daughter, Isabella." Turning to me, Charlie thumbed to the newcomer. "This is the pack Alpha, Sam. If you're on Quileute land and he says jump, then you either say how high or get the hell off his property."

Sam chuckled and held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Isabella."

My inner cougar hacked inside my head. She didn't like the idea of touching another supernatural creature of the canine kind, but I reached out and did so anyway.

"Just Bella is fine."

He gave me a single nod. "Bella it is then. We just wanted to get your scent and pass it around the pack so we'd ask questions before attacking outright."

"I'd appreciate that. Charlie showed me the boarder, but I don't see any reason to cross into it unless something is seriously wrong."

"Fair enough."

Charlie grunted and then gestured again. "We were headed to the Cullen's place next. Anything you want to pass along?"

The two wolves raised their hackles and growled somewhat menacingly, before Sam waved them off. "No. I appreciate you being the go-between, Charlie."

"Part of the job, I guess; peacekeeper and all."

Sam chuckled. "It's not so much the peace. It's the smell we can't stand."

"I know what you mean."

That was pretty much it. They shook hands and took off leaving Charlie and I stripping again and phasing back into our animal sides.

Something I failed to mention before that I might have given a clue about was our animal sides. That's what they were, at least for me. Charlie says it takes a while to integrate the two beings into one once the cougar raises its head at the age of maturity. So, basically what I've got is a human side that thinks logically and emotionally, and an animal side that reacts on instinct. While I'm hunting, I usually let her run free until she's sated. That way she doesn't interfere too much with me when I'm in my human form.

Being around the wolf shifters brought her out protective instincts. It's not so much that she talks to me so much as she projects emotions in basic ways. Hunt, prey, danger, attack, and run; these are the ones I'm very familiar with so far. Moving to Forks has brought forth a handful each day I've been here since I try to phase as much as possible while I'm learning. Being caught unaware of a new instinct is a little disorienting at first. Unless I want her to run free around humans or whatever, I have to logically work it out before letting her loose.

There are people who go camping in the national forest and it wouldn't be good if I came across the instinct to investigate the human smell. It's best to just say away from them altogether.

Once I was back in cougar form, I chased after Charlie's cougar for a couple of miles past the turnoff for my house. It looked like the Cullens were a lot closer to me than I thought. I'd been going out of my way to steer clear of them. I mean seriously, vampires? No, thank you. I had no desire whatsoever to have my neck sucked on. Yeah, I'm aware that they really don't do that unless they intend to kill you, but still. Cougars and vamps just don't mix.

When we got within a hundred yards of the house, I caught their scent. It was sweet and the closer I got, the sweeter the smell. I felt like I'd walked into a confectionary or something. It wasn't bad, just strong. Apparently the wolves didn't have a sweet tooth, or maybe their own sense of smell was killed by the ever-present reek of wet dog twenty-four hours a day. I could see that.

I smelled chocolate, fudge, powdered sugar, Sweet Tarts, honey, and…

Stopping on the driveway right before the house I was reminded of trips to the amusement park and the one smell that I absolutely loved above all others – funnel cake. Memories of entering the park and heading straight to the first shop there was to have Renée purchase a single cake for me ran through my head. We'd always leave the shop and head to the rollercoaster. I'd busy myself quietly while we were in line. It was one of the happier memories that I'd ever had.

Charlie phased right out in the open again and slipped on his shorts and tank while I paced back and forth reliving my childhood.

"Stay a cougar until everyone gets here. I want to make sure they know your markings."

I hacked and kept pacing as I watched several people that were definitely not human exit the large three story house and take the stairs down in our general direction.

As predicted, my cougar was caught between instincts. She wanted to flee at the sight of a strange predator. She also wanted to get a taste of them to see if the scent matched the flavor. Lastly, she wanted to rip into them to show them that this was my territory and they weren't welcome. Like I said, she was torn.

I processed this while Charlie moved forward and started shaking hands.

All the men were in front staring at me, probably protecting their women. A few tentative steps forward and I stopped so I could define each of their scents. The large one with the dark hair was fudge. The shaggy-blond-haired one was powdered sugar. The young lanky guy was white chocolate, and the older one with the sweater vest was dark chocolate.

I hacked at their scent. It wasn't what I called pleasant because it was so strong, but it wasn't enough for me to run away from like the wolves.

The dark chocolate one approached me with his hands held out and a pleased look on his face. "This is young Isabella. She's beautiful, Charlie."

Sitting my butt down on the ground, I cocked my head at him and raised a single paw in the air, batting at it playfully.

Dark chocolate smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you too, my dear."

"Bella," Charlie said. "Go ahead and phase so you can meet the rest."

Hacking once, I turned and leaped into the brush, far enough away so I could have some privacy. This time around I had to fish some dead leaves and a twig out of the Speedo after I put it on. Talk about uncomfortable. It was the price I paid for running around barefoot. Once everything was in order, I stepped back into the clearing and saw the women chatting with Charlie.

On approach I caught the scent of cotton candy which was coming from the woman that dark chocolate had his arm around. Sweet Tarts was the runway model clone tucked under fudge's beefy arm, and…

The smallest vampire of the lot had just turned her eyes on me and I came to an abrupt stop about ten feet away. She had a pleasant smile on her face, but it was her gold colored irises that held me in place. My lower abdomen tightened and I forgot to breathe somewhere along the line.

"Oh… fuh…." I mumbled before my knees gave out and I nearly collapsed on the ground.

Tunnel vision took away most of my eyesight as I seemed to be completely focused on just one person. My cougar rose up in my mind and gave out a harsh scream, a caterwaul, over and over again, sending my heart into a fast pace and making me finally breathe. It came in sharp short pants.

"Oh, crap," someone said. "Nobody move a muscle."

The scream pounded throughout my head after every fourth heartbeat until my throat tightened and tried its level best to imitate the sound, only at a much lower decibel level.

That same someone spoke again. "Bella."

"Why is she making that sound while she's looking at me?"

"She won't hurt you, Alice," that voice said. I was pretty sure it was Charlie, but I wasn't really paying attention. "And I really can't talk about it. It's an intensely private matter."

After a few minutes passed, my human mind started catching up and the tunnel vision widened to include Charlie and the rest of the Cullens. It was about that time that I realized the position I was in and what all the hubbub was about. My eyes widened and my face heated well past simple embarrassment stage that I normally felt during my klutz years.

"Bella?"

My eyes slammed shut. "Yeah?"

"You feeling okay?"

"Um…" No, I really wasn't. "I need to go."

"But…" he started, however I didn't wait to hear anymore.

As fast as I could I bolted up and ran into the forest. My cougar lent me her speed and stamina as I leaped over fallen trees and dodged live ones. Saplings and brush whipped against my skin and small woodland creatures scattered making irritated noises. Panic set in and I pushed myself even harder. My lungs expanded taking an ever increasing amount of air in to supplement what I was using as I made a beeline to my house.

The floodlights in the back yard told me I'd arrived at my destination much faster than I thought possible when I put on the brakes and tore up a good ten feet of soil coming to a stop. That's when I felt my cougar rear up and demand to be let loose. Not knowing what else to do, I stripped off the Speedo and phased before it hit the ground along with the fanny pack.

The catlike scream came back louder and more forceful than when it was trapped in my head as I started pacing. Except this time it was echoing thought the trees. The intense need that was trying its level best to escape out of my chest clouded my rational thoughts as I screamed again.

Running over to the closest tree, six-inch claws extended from my paws and ripped through the trunk in seconds, but it didn't satisfy the burning that was starting in a place I'd rather not talk about. That's when it became clear.

Turning again, I leaped to the porch and phased as I landed, slamming into the back door, nearly ripping it from its hinges as I sped to the shower. I whimpered as I turned on the cold water and closed the glass door to let the icy water do its job.

Goose pimples erupted all over my body, shocking my logical mind back into place and pushing down the subconscious-turned-conscious desire to run back to the Cullens and claim the little pixie vampire with the wispy hair and most sensuous eyes I'd ever seen as mine.

Gritting my teeth I growled out to my absent father, "You didn't freaking tell me about this, Charlie Swan!"


	2. In the Heat of the Night

Disclaimer in first chapter. If you want to know the progress of future chapters of any story I write, just check my profile. For those of you that commented or reviewed, my thanks go out to you. It's always nice to know how the chapter was perceived.

* * *

I was in a foul mood the next morning when I parked the Jeep in front of the school and grabbed my messenger bag from the passenger seat. It had been raining since midnight and the forecast was for even more throughout the next three days. Since I didn't own an umbrella, I pulled my leather jacket closed and made it a point to walk as determinedly as possible to the front door. Old habits die hard; it was ingrained into my body to take things slow and carefully due to my klutz years. As a result, my hair was soaked and dripping by the time I made it inside.

The blond boy that made the butt and legs comment on my first day was there holding the door open, trying his best to be chivalrous or something. It wasn't anything I was quite used to; in the past, boys tended to ignore me. Who wanted to be known for dating the short mousy haired girl with the flat chest? Nobody. Since I'd gotten the physical improvements it was like I'd been shoved into some alternate universe where I was one of the beautiful people. Needless to say, I had no clue how to deal with it very well.

"Hey, Bella. Some rain, huh?"

I didn't say anything and just kept on walking down the hall toward my locker when he set his hand on my shoulder trying to keep up. In the past, I wasn't used to one other thing: being touched, except for being bounced off of or shoved aside by those in whose way I got. The point is, I didn't like it one tiny bit.

"Hey, uh. Do you want…?"

He didn't even get the whole sentence out before I whipped around, baring my teeth in a hiss. That particular reaction caught him flatfooted, literally. With an abrupt halt in the small puddles I was leaving behind, his feet flew out from under him and the books he was holding went flying as he went down with a muted thump. Several of the people that were around us looked like they were about to laugh at the free entertainment before they caught sight of me, and their eyes widened in fright.

_Crap. I forgot my glasses_.

Turning around, I reached in my coat to pull out the rose colored glasses and put them on as I stalked further down the hall. Stopping by my locker, I grabbed my AP English reader, Government, and Physics books and slammed the door before heading to class.

The seat I'd been assigned in the back corner was still empty when I walked through the door, but then again only three other people were there. Class wasn't going to start for another fifteen minutes. That was plenty of time to text Charlie again about what happened the previous night.

_Why haven't you called me back? What the hell is happening to me?_

I hit send and silently cursed for the fiftieth time in for the last eight hours. There wasn't one interrupted minute of sleep the whole night as I had spent most of it scratching an itch that couldn't be satisfied no matter how much I tried. I was no stranger to self-gratification. Considering my appearance and social strata pre-cougar days, it was pretty much the only way to take care of business and remain sane.

However, nothing was to be done about my predicament. Meditation, masturbation, madefaction, thought manipulation… all of those M words that end in –tion, none of it did any good. My breathing started coming in short pants again and I thought, for a second that I'd have to leave school for the day; hell, probably for the week. That was until the damn funnel cake smell hit my senses once again.

A shaky breath slowly released itself from my chest when I realized that my eyes were closed. Opening them, I immediately spotted someone very familiar heading in my direction with a cute smile on her face. I squirmed in my seat at the pulsing ache making itself known again.

"Hello," the vampire girl said. "You ran off before we met. I'm Alice."

Clamping my thighs as tight as they would go, I forced a weak smile to my face. "Bella."

Out of all the seats in the entire classroom, she had to be assigned the one right next to me. Have I mentioned how much I hated Fate?

"Nice glasses. Dolce & Gabbana?"

They were round and rose-colored. That was all I was concerned about when I bought them. "Uh… I guess."

She grinned at me and I thought my stomach flipped right after.

"You buy designer glasses without even trying? A girl after my own heart."

Putting all spoken thoughts about the way Charlie was dressed the previous night, I absolutely have nothing against gay people, just like I have nothing against Christians, or politicians. They're all have their place in the grand scheme of things just like everyone else. The thing is, I've never looked at a single girl in my life and said to myself, "_Wow, I'd really like to know what she tastes like in the morning after a long night under my thorough attentions."_ However, that was what was going on in my mind at the moment.

The side of my desk cracked as I gripped it without thinking. Alice's eyes widened at the damage and then flicked back to me with genuine concern.

"Your dad said that you'd be okay today. Was he wrong?"

My lips curled in and pressed together as I tried to settle myself to no avail. "I – I need…"

She turned her head and saw a couple of people come in the class while I gazed at the long line of her neck and wanted nothing more on this earth than to press my lips against her skin.

"I gotta go," I said.

Before I knew it I was back in my Jeep with my head pressed against the steering wheel trying to regain control of myself. My respiration was increased again and I really needed another cold shower. The frigid rain did nothing to help. What the heck was wrong with me that I couldn't keep it together for even ten minutes?

The sharp tapping at the passenger side window made me jump and accidently blast the horn at the same time. Alice stood just outside pointing to the closed lock and raising my messenger bag at the same time.

"Dammit."

I flicked the autolock and she opened the door, shutting it behind her as she hopped in. Her scent immediately permeated the Jeep making it ten times worse than sitting in the open air classroom. For a moment I swooned.

"I really didn't want to go to school today anyway," she said with a delighted voice. "I mean who seriously wants to repeat high school even once much less dozens of times? Do you want to go to your place? I still haven't seen your house yet. Carlisle told everyone to stay clear until you said something."

I blinked at her rambling, thinking it was the cutest thing I'd ever heard, and I'm not a big fan of ramblers; who is?

"Uh…"

She grinned at me and reached over to touch my hand. "You really have to expand on your vocabulary if we're going to have any decent conversations, Bella."

Alice paused and took in a deep breath through her nose and smiled. "It's so nice to smell someone that doesn't make me want to sink my teeth into them, yanno? I think that's why I don't like high school; too many unwashed masses, literally."

With a brief pause, she pulled her hand back and I could breathe again. Only this time I felt a small measure of control.

"So come on. Chop Chop. Let's go, before we get busted for skipping."

~O~

"Funnel cakes," I mumbled. My face was in my hands as I confessed.

Alice was delighted. "Seriously?"

The desire to jump Alice had eased off considerably the second she entered my house. I have no idea way, but I felt almost calm and content as she walked around looking at the pictures and knickknacks I had scattered in the living room. I felt somewhat useless as a hostess since I couldn't offer her anything to eat or drink unless I tapped a vein or something. Then I remembered that Charlie said we tasted like ass to vampires.

"Most people – well, vampires really – say I smell like jasmine, the flower, yanno?" At my nod she rambled on. "I mean everyone I meet smells like some kind of spice or flower… maybe a tree or fruit, except for the werewolves; they smell like a pack of wet dogs. Even your dad smells like the forest around here and let me tell you that's one hard man to track. But not you. You smell like the desert. It is like this sweet, dusty, earthy, lushy, wondrous, hard to describe smell. I just want to roll around in its sensuous scent."

I swallowed at the thought of Alice rolling around on me and tried desperately to think of something else. It seemed as if everything that came out of her mouth got twisted around in my head in some perverted way.

"That's probably oversharing a little, huh?"

Shaking my head, I couldn't imagine her oversharing at all.

"Cool. You're a good listener, Bella."

My face heated up a little at the compliment even though I hadn't done a thing to deserve it. "Thanks."

"So, do you want to talk about what happened last night?"

_Crap!_

Before I had even thought of how to explain myself in a way that wouldn't make her run for the hills, Alice broke in with more of her thoughts.

"Your dad said it was something he couldn't talk about and that it was personal. Whatever it was had Jasper on his knees afterward and it's really hard to rattle him. He's an empath, you know, or maybe you don't."

I shook my head.

"Certain vampires have these gifts. Jasper can feel emotions and project emotions too. He had a really hard time dealing with whatever you sent out. Him and Tanya were holed up in their room for hours afterward. Even Edward was a little stricken. He's a telepath by the way – receiving only. This morning he couldn't make heads or tails of what you were thinking. He said it was like pure instinct or something; raw and powerful whatever that means."

I couldn't take anymore. Really, I tried. As soon as Alice brought up my embarrassing display of spazzmosis on their driveway, all I could think about was the aftereffects and my struggles in the bed for hours on end. Instead of trying to explain myself, I leaped. Alice was only a foot away, and with my cougar backing me up, speed wasn't an issue. A half second later and she was on her back staring up at me with wide, excited eyes.

"Oh."

The last thing I wanted to do was force myself on her, but my cougar was being very insistent that I do something, anything. Alice's hands were free and mine were caressing the sides of her face as a contented rumbling was coming from inside my head.

"Does this mean you like me?" she whispered.

In response, I started to lower my lips against hers and let nature take its course, but they only encountered a single finger barring the way.

"Bella," Alice said just as softly. "We haven't even gone on a date, and you haven't even bothered to ask me if I like girls in that way… not to mention Thercougars. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Thercougar. I've just never dated one. To tell the truth I haven't really even tried dating across the species line. I mean they all pretty much reek, except for you and Charlie, and he's not really my type."

Frustration at being denied ran through me and I pulled myself back, trying to quash the hormonal rage that I was feeling. Whatever it was that made me intensely attracted to a girl for the first time in my life roared in my head making my teeth grind together.

Without another word said, Alice back-flipped away from me and to her feet as gracefully as any Olympic gymnast. She frowned at me as I grabbed my hair at the sides and buried my face between my legs, moaning at the loss. As I was whining to myself I heard a couple of electronic beeps and Alice's voice once more.

"Charlie, it's Alice. I'm at Bella's house and we have a problem." There was a short pause after. "We'll be here."

After she stowed her cell away in her jacket, Alice came to sit beside me to tug away one of my hands, intertwining our fingers. The thing was I almost immediately felt better. The frustrated feeling didn't go away, but it had eased off considerably, letting me at least think of something else other than bedding the girl next to me. That was the messed up part. I had absolutely no idea what to do with her even if I had her. It wasn't like I knew anything or even wanted to know anything about sex between two girls. I'd probably make a fool out of myself in the process.

Strangely enough, that seemed to quell the fire that was burning inside.

"Just try to relax. Lean back and breathe deep. Charlie's on his way and he's going to explain what's going on."

Listening to Alice's advice, I leaned back and took a calming breath.

_Funnel cakes… dammit_.

"Can you talk about something… anything?" I almost begged.

"Sure," she said with a fair amount of glee. "Let's see. I can tell you about my family."

I nodded. Anything was fine. She could probably just read out of the phone book and I'd be happy.

"You… tell me about you."

Alice shrugged. "There's not much to tell about me. I was turned in 1920. Before that I don't have a clue. Total memory loss. That happens sometimes to vampires. I mean one minute it feels like I'm swimming my way through a volcano and the next, Poof! No memory. Which was probably a good thing, because I was wearing nothing but a dingy white shirt and pants. I mean seriously, can you see me dressed in dirty white clothes – and it was after labor day as well!"

I snorted, totally unintentionally.

"I know!" she said. "It was a mess."

Alice paused for a moment. Her smile faltered for a microsecond before she continued her history.

"Anyway, I did vampire things for the first couple of years until I had pretty decent control. By that time I started getting my visions tamed to the point where I could… well, not control them per se, but nudge them in certain directions."

That gave me pause. "Visions?"

She blinked at me and then wacked the side of her head with the heel of her hand. "Duh, sorry. That's my gift I see the future. Well, pieces of it anyway. It's sort of subjective. A decision has to be made and then I can see the outcome. Here, go ahead and make a decision about dinner and I'll tell you what you're going to eat."

Crooking an eyebrow at her I decided that I'd give it a whirl. Then I came to the conclusion that I'd go hunting for dinner, that maybe a full stomach would help me gain some more control. As I thought about it, Alice's face went blank, like she was seeing through my head at something behind me. Then it shifted again.

"Elk," she said with a grin. "A big sucker too – twelve pointer. I recognized the place. It's about ten miles north of here in a big clearing with…"

Alice paused for a second as she turned and looked at the front door. That's when I heard Charlie pulling up on the drive. My forehead wrinkled with minor annoyance. Now that he was here, I was perfectly fine. Yes, I still wanted to see what the nape of my new friend's neck tasted like after an hour between the sheets, but it wasn't any worse than any of my fantasies as a normal human. However, now that I'd magically regained control over my rampaging hormones, I knew that I didn't want Charlie inside the house giving it his fatherly cougar funk. The atmosphere was just the way I wanted it, saturated with funnel cake.

Taking a tighter grip on Alice's hand I pulled her up with me and headed toward the front door before Charlie had a chance to knock.

"Getting somewhat possessive, aren't we?"

I threw a look back and noticed Alice's eyes were on our hands. Now that I'd gotten a hold of her I wasn't letting go that easily. "Um… yeah."

"We still haven't had that first date," she reminded me. "And you still haven't asked me about the whole lesbian thing either."

What was it with her and dating? "We don't have to be going out to hold hands."

"Yes we do. Otherwise rumors get started, and before you know it one of us is pregnant and wearing a big red letter on her breast."

Shaking my head, I grabbed the doorknob. "You read way too much classic literature. We're girls; girls can hold hands, kiss each other, and even dance together without there being any social stigma attached."

Alice crooked an eye at my proclamation and I folded a half second after.

"Okay, fine. They can kiss each other's cheek."

"Better," she said as the sound of Charlie's car door being closed let us know we officially weren't alone. "Your daddy's here."

My nose crinkled at the thought of calling my biological father by that term of endearment. "He didn't raise me. He's just Charlie."

I opened the door and with a final breath of funnel cake'ness I escorted Alice out to the porch. There wasn't much wind, and the steady drizzle of rain calmed my cougar as it recognized its relation approaching. Charlie promptly noticed the hand holding with a mildly disgruntled twist of a cheek.

"I see you two have already figured it out."

That was enough to get my fur up, metaphorically . "Figured what out? What the hell is happening to me and why haven't you returned any of my texts?"

He stepped up on the porch to get out of the rain. "Any of your what?"

"My texts!" I reiterated. "I've sent like a dozen of them."

His brows furrowed as he lifted the flap of his jacket pocket and looked askance at the cell phone in grip. "Is that what that damn chirping is?"

Alice giggled at his realization, and I wondered if Charlie was perpetually stuck in the 1980's along with his Burnt Reynolds porn moustache, and his bathhouse shorts. And by the way, why would a parent name their kid Burnt? Seriously, one would think that the Chief of Police would be up with the times. How else does he solve crimes committed by teenagers?

"I still haven't figured out how to get these ticked off bird things off the screen. I let one kid play with it so he won't touch the evidence bags scattered around my desk and it hasn't been the same since," he said with a sour note. "Next time call me."

My face was frozen in disbelief.

"That's it. We're spending the next dinner catching you up to the new millennia," I said in all seriousness. "Now, what the heck is up with me?"

His eyes fell to Alice and then up to mine as he stored his cell away. "Maybe you better sit down for this."

Looking to the side, I spotted an assortment of extremely damp lawn chairs, but Alice squeezed my hand.

"I'm not sitting on those things. I'm wearing Calvin Klein today."

Feeling even more possessive and protective, for some odd reason, I volunteered to be the buffer. "You can sit on my lap."

Before she had a chance to offer an argument I scooped her up and dropped down on the seat with Alice perched nicely on one knee. My cougar purred with contentment in the back of my brain as Alice wiggled away.

"You've remember that thing I told you about with the wolf shifters – the imprint thing?" Charlie started as he leaned against the wooden railing.

Both my eyebrows rose in panic. "You don't mean…"

"No, it's not an imprint, but it's the closest thing to this that I can use as an example."

Alice stopped wiggling and her attention swiveled to Charlie. "Wait, what? What imprint thing?"

I squeezed her thigh. "The shifters… sometimes when they meet someone for the first time, they imprint on them. It's the shifter way of finding a wife." If I remembered properly what Charlie said at our first dinner.

"Right," he confirmed. "Cougars are solitary animals, so we don't really mate like that."

Before I had a chance to panic and call my father out on stalling, he explained.

"Usually, the male goes out of his territory and finds a suitable female, they have… um…" His cheeks pinked slightly.

"Sex," Alice supplied. "They get their freak on; the horizontal mambo…"

Charlie held his hands up in surrender before she had a chance to really get on a roll. "Right. That. Anyway, she gets pregnant and the male goes back to his territory."

I sighed and dragged a hand down my face with dubious frustration. "Are you telling me that you're a player?"

"What?"

"You go around boinking half the state and don't even stick around to raise your kid? Do I have a truckload of brothers and sisters out there?"

"What? No." Charlie nearly barked. "I learned my lesson the first time with your mother. I use... um…"

"Condoms?" Alice supplied. "The tubular rain jackets? The purple ribbed lambskin…"

"Right… that."

I shook my head at the thought. It was best to not picture Charlie and some random girl in some seedy hotel room with Barry White playing in the background. He _was_ fixated on the '80s for some reason. My new problem was that still didn't answer what was going on with me. Somehow I seriously doubted that I was looking at Alice to bear my children, or vice versa for that matter. There were certain pieces of anatomy that played a vital part of that process, and the last time I checked I wasn't sporting any new appendages. At that thought, I looked warily down at Alice's lap and tried not to bring to mind freaky Futa pictures from the internet.

It was best to just cut to the chase. "What's all of this have to do with me and Alice?"

Charlie shrugged. "It's the best that I can come up with. I've never heard or seen it happen to cougars of the same… uh."

Alice smiled. "Sex."

She seemed to take some sort of perverted pleasure out of making my father as uncomfortable as possible. Not that it wasn't funny, but I had bigger fish to fry.

"So, you're saying I want to mate with Alice."

The aforementioned pixie sized vampire patted me on the arm. "I think he means you want to have sex with me, Bella. And truthfully, who wouldn't? I am quite the catch."

"And so modest too."

Charlie rolled his eyes. "It's just a phase. In a few days the urge will pass and you can get back to normal. That's why I thought you had figured it out," he said as he gestured to us. "Sometimes just being in close proximity takes the edge off."

"Urge?"

Alice leaned in and enlightened me. "I think he means that you're in heat, honey."

I stiffened at the thought. No, this couldn't be happening. There was no way that God would do this to me; not after everything else that's been piled on my plate for the last month. To be a victim of cougar sexual physiology as well… it was too much.

"So," Charlie said as he stepped away from the railing. "That's all I've got. Alice, you'll do me a favor and stick around Bella for the next couple of days?"

~O~

Just when I think the day couldn't have gotten any worse, Alice pops up with a signed doctor's note excusing me for being tardy and we wind up going back to school.

"How did you get that?"

"Carlisle is an emergency department doctor at the local hospital. We've each got a stack of these. So, all I have to do is fill in the name and date."

There was something that should be out of the ordinary, um, besides the whole vampire thing.

"He's a vampire working in a hospital? Shouldn't there be a conflict of interest or something?"

Alice smiled as she looked over at me from the passenger side of the Jeep. "One would think. Carlisle has amazing control over his bloodlust. Edward is pretty good as well. Tanya's over a thousand years old so she can pretty much take it or leave it, but the rest of us have to actually struggle."

The wheel of the Jeep twitched and I found myself hitting the brake, the accelerator, and nearly pitching the vehicle as I ran off the road, into a ditch and back up to the road again. Yep, it was a great idea to put mud tires on this thing. Klutz!Bella was back with a vengeance.

"A thousand years old!"

Alice bounced in her seat. "That was fun! Let's do it again!"

I just glared at her in response.

It was one thing to want to have fun when you're a vampire. There wasn't a whole lot out there that could actually hurt you. In Alice's case, with no unfriendly vamps in the area all she had to concern herself with was being engulfed in a ball of flame long enough to ignite the venom in her body. Me? I had to heal any damage the hard way, and if it was bad enough, I could die.

"Party pooper."

Desperate to change the subject, I brought my gaze firmly back to the road. "So, how are we supposed to work this out?"

Alice grinned naughtily. "You mean the fact that you're in heat and you need little ol' me to put out the flame?"

I grit my teeth. "Would you quit saying that!"

My hand got condescendingly patted for that outburst. "It's part of your physical makeup, Bella. There's nothing to be ashamed of. We all have our embarrassing traits to deal with. Vampires, for instance, we have an overly keen sense of smell, even moreso than cougars according to Charlie."

That wasn't very surprising. While cougars had an overdeveloped sense of smell akin to your average cat, we're more of a visual hunter and ambush predator. So, while I smelled a lot of scents wherever I went, I figured the wolves and vamps probably had me on that particular problem.

"I was stuck on a plane coming up here from Phoenix. I know how bad it can get," I said with empathy.

"Oh, no," Alice laughed. "Try going to high school with my nose. I can smell every single person in the school, what they had for dinner, if they bothered to bathe that day, what type of perfume they wear, and the effectiveness of their panty liner. Jasper has it the worst in that area. That's why he always looks constipated. All of that together, every day, is the worst smell except for maybe the wolves."

As I pulled into the school parking lot, I looked over at her. "Which one's Jasper?"

"The blonde shaggy haired one."

"Ah, powdered sugar."

Alice snorted. "That's what he smells like to you?"

I nodded.

"He'll like that."

~O~

We went our separate ways after dropping our doctor's notes off at the front office. When Alice disappeared around the corner, my edginess was back, but it was at least manageable. I returned my first two class's textbooks and pulled out a Calculus and Art History to replace them before heading to Physics.

That particular class had another vampire in it, Sweet Tarts, if my nose remembered properly. Her eyes narrowed slightly as they followed me from the teacher's desk to my seat in the far corner away from her. As I sat, she fingered a lock of curly hair behind her ear and returned her attention back to the day's lesson while I pondered my predicament.

Suffering from embarrassment seemed to be one of the things that I never escaped from when I started turning feline at the drop of a hat. The days of heated cheeks and the feeling that my stomach was turning over a dozen times in less than a minute were far from over. Leaving the big city and moving to Forks had solved a number of problems, but it had created just as many to replace the ones I'd lost; the biggest wound up being my lack of intelligence.

No, I'm not stupid. Cruising through high school in advanced classes and scoring straight A's on my report card was proof enough. It was my ignorance regarding the supernatural that made my stomach turn. It wasn't like I could go to the local book store and peruse the non-fiction section for Thercougar DIY guides. Charlie was my one and only source for information and he had a real job that took up most of his time.

Granted, he had already spent a couple of evenings giving me the lowdown on the most important stuff I needed to know to survive. However, Alice Cullen and my supposed need to have her satisfy my mating needs for the next few days posted a big red question mark in the _Desperately Need to Know_ file of my brain.

So, there was no literature I could refer to in regard to my cougar's needs. That left me with two choices: I could continue to run around clueless for the rest of my life, or I could do something about it. Considering my academic acuity, I settled for the latter.

~O~

I swept the crowded hallway in front of me with my eyes as the masses were heading to the cafeteria. Before I even had a chance to take a single step, a cool hand slipped onto the crook of my arm and the smell of funnel cakes smothered the itchy feeling that was crawling along my skin for the last hour and an half.

"Sit with us?"

My eyes dropped to Alice as she stood there flashing me an expectant smile. With a nod of assent toward her I felt a slight pull as I was lead to the far wall where two tables were pushed together. Sweet Tarts and Fudge were already there. White Chocolate and Powdered… Jasper were coming off the ala carte line each baring a tray with the day's mystery meat on top. I sat my messenger bag down in the seat Alice pointed out and we made our way to the snack bar.

"I thought you guys didn't eat normal food."

Alice shrugged. "We don't. There's something to be said for going through the motions. We fit in better that way."

That made no sense to me. I mean, why waste the money and the food? All you had to say was that you didn't like the slop they served at school. It wasn't like anyone would question a decision like that. There were a whole slew of people back in Phoenix that used lunch time to simply gossip. There were cheerleaders, dance team members, and bulimic wannabes that wouldn't even consider eating anything that wasn't prepared by their parents or personal chefs. Of course, things ran a little more conservative in small towns in the middle of nowhere.

Alice acquired a chef's salad and I grabbed three burgers again before we made it back to the table under the intense gaze of White Chocolate.

I observed his eyebrows wrinkling and then doing a little dance as he stared at me, while Alice played hostess.

"Edward, Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper, this is Bella," she said cheerfully. "Bella, my family. Oh, by the way, Jazzy, Bella says you smell like Powdered Sugar."

Jasper's mouth ticked at the corner and seemed to lose the smallest amount of tension along his cheeks. I just tried to ignore it and concentrated on building my triple burger under Rosalie's moderately disgusted watchful eye.

"I can't read you."

My eyes ticked up to White Chocolate, now known as Edward Cullen. My normal response to that would be something less than polite, but with Alice sitting right beside me I didn't want to tick her off.

"It's like you're a chaos of instinct with no thought behind anything," he continued.

I cocked my head to the others as they sat there probably waiting for an explanation.

"Edward," Alice said, saving me from having to make up something on the spot. "Quit being rude."

With a shrug of my shoulders I slapped a bun on the top of my burger and took a bite while I thought about his observation and swallowed.

"Can you read Charlie?"

"He's muddled, but I can always get the gist of his thoughts. That's why I trust him as a go-between with the wolves."

It was obvious what was happening, even to a teenager. "You can't read my innermost thought so _you_ can't trust _me_? That's rich."

"It's not a matter of trust," Jasper said guardedly. "It's a matter of safety."

This was the first time I'd gotten a really good look at the shaggy blond haired guy. It was his bare neck that made me slightly uneasy, that and the nearly imperceptible arc of scars that decorated either side. A normal human would have never been able to perceive them except perhaps in an intense light. After taking in the high collar of his shirt and the long sleeves he wore even at home, I concentrated on his hands and found even more.

This was definitely a very dangerous individual. That was the only reason I let his comment go. Obviously the safety of his coven was of high importance, since he was the one that probably stood in its defense.

"I'm a live and let live kind of girl, Jasper. You've got nothing to fear as long as you don't threaten me."

Edward leaned into the table most seriously. "Even when you're phased?"

I felt Alice shift beside me as I took in her posture from my peripheral vision. She was tense, but I couldn't tell if it was from me or the actions of her coven brothers.

"Did I eat you last night? Did I do anything physically to make you think that I was going to attack, or did I simply _think_ in a way that you uncomfortable with? Big Brother's thought police are alive and well."

His lips firmed. I suppose it was all up to perception. Considering he was a mind reader that point was up for grabs, but I didn't have to sit there and take the abuse. If they didn't want me around then there was a nice circular table over in the corner that served just as well.

"Now if you'll excuse me," I said as I stood and took hold of my tray in one hand and my bag in the other. "Apparently I'm not wanted here."

Alice's hand rose in protest of my leaving, and then dropped again as did her lips in a deep frown. Kicking my chair out of the way, I stalked along the tables with a scowl on my face, returning to my self-sentenced solitary confinement in the corner. Several people leaned away from me as I passed, mild fear, concern, and a touch of disgust was obvious from their reactions. The blond hair kid from earlier in the morning looked ready to drop a load in his jeans when my head turned to him briefly. Ignoring them seemed to be the most prudent thing.

As I passed each table, heated whispers of red eyes, and the psycho girl from Phoenix were on most people's lips. With a sigh, I set my tray down and found the curly haired girl from the previous day briefly looking up at me when I took my new chair.

So much for my new looks making it easier to acquire a few friends. It was almost like being back home. At least the itching on my skin was easing up. I guess anger pretty much trumps lust anytime.


	3. I'm Stepping Out for a Bite

Disclaimer in first chapter. If you want to know the progress of future chapters of any story I write, just check my profile. For those of you that commented or reviewed, my thanks go out to you. It's always nice to know how the chapter was perceived.

* * *

The one thing I was very happy to see go to the wayside was my hair trigger for tears. Growing up it seemed as if any little thing would set me off. Someone called me a name, a certain cute boy would ignore me, Renee was too busy to play mother, a nail broke, you name it and I was blubbering like a three year old. Since the cougar entered my life all of those weak emotions seemed to be shunted to the anger side of my brain. This was a relatively good thing since I could phase to my cougar and she could take her aggressions out on a run or a hunt.

That was mainly what I was looking forward to after the last bell rang for the day. It was probably the reason why fate decided that I'd been living the high life for far too long. Our definition of too long was vastly opposed to each other. Mine was a decade or two without any major incident occurring. Fate's was maybe thirty minutes or so, give or take a quarter of an hour. That explained me being one of the last students out of the building at the end of the day because the principal insisted on having a heart to heart welcome to Forks High conversation before I could escape her clutches. Apparently she was one of Charlie's old girlfriend's sometime within the last decade and thought I could be the way back into his bedroom. Gag.

When I finally made my way to the parking lot there was only my Jeep and a moderately used Toyota Corolla sitting four spaces away with an equally moderately upset looking tanned white girl standing there. She had her hood open and was wiggling things in a vain attempt to look like she knew what she was doing.

It wasn't until I scuffed my boot along the pavement, so I wouldn't scare the girl half to death, that she noticed me. Up close I could see she probably could have been the starting center for the Forks girls' basketball team; she was that tall. Her light brown hair was edging in to being frazzled from the number of times her hand had already pushed through in frustration.

"Car trouble?" I asked.

She openly groaned before answering. "You don't have any jumper cables do you?"

"No. Maintenance and I aren't on speaking terms." The girl looked helpless and that was a place I was once intimately familiar with. "I could give you a ride if you want."

She looked torn, as if she didn't want to leave her car, but nodded before closing the hood. "Thanks. That would be great."

I didn't bother standing around and jumped into the jeep, watching her as she retrieved her backpack and then worked her way around to the passenger side.

"I'm Angela," she said as she fastened her seatbelt.

"Bella. So, where do you want me to drop you?"

Angela pointed to the only road that let out from the parking lot. "Um, west on 110 about five miles, if that isn't going out of your way."

Shaking my head, I put the jeep into gear. "Same way I'm going."

"Cool." That seemed to ease her mind for some reason. "So, I hear you're from Phoenix?"

I nodded. "Uh, yeah, but I was born here."

"So was I."

The conversation stalled by that point as I found my way to the highway and made a left. Instead of thinking of some random talking point I took in Angela's scent which wasn't too bad. It mostly consisted of soap, a light amount of hair gel, and a random deodorant. I appreciated the cleanliness if nothing else.

"Is it true that your eyes are red?"

It was annoying, but it was also my own fault for not remembering to put on my stupid glasses that morning until it was too late. I took them off and slipped them into my jacket pocket before giving Angela's light brown, almost wheat colored, ones a nice long look at the stoplight. Hers, in turn, widened to almost comic proportions.

"It's a genetic disorder," I said. "The blood vessels in my eyes leak into my iris. My dad has the same problem, but he can wear colored contacts. So, you can tell the gossips that I'm not part demon or anything."

Her cheeks flushed as her head dropped. "Sorry; I didn't mean anything by it. I was just curious."

When the light turned green I let off the break and eased into the intersection. "It's no big deal. I'm used to it."

A mile went by without anything else being said and we exited the town proper. Once the forest started thickening on the right side of the highway the tension in my shoulders eased. I was sure Angela made note and decided that was a good time to retry her welcome to Forks speech.

"So… the Cullens."

Or not.

I glanced her way and then back out the front. "What about them?"

She shrugged and fingered one of the zippers on her backpack.

"Nobody's ever really talked to them outside of class… and you know with lunch today…"

Angela left it hanging there in an obvious attempt for me to fill in the blank.

"They're just people." – that'll suck the blood out of your body, but who's keeping score?

"Mega rich people in the same family that date each other."

There was that. "Are they new too?"

"Last year."

"So nobody's gotten to know them," I concluded. "Since I'm the new girl and was seen at their table, obviously I have the inside scoop?"

Angela grinned. "You've done this before."

I let that comment go. "My dad introduced me to them since they're the closest neighbors I have."

Her back straightened. Apparently that got her attention. "You've seen their house?"

"It's big."

"Duh."

Since their secret wasn't mine to tell I tried to end the topic of conversation. "Like I said – they're just people. Some are nice, some are asshats."

Angela snorted and relaxed into her seat, but pointed. "The next road hang a left. Alice is nice."

Thoughts of funnel cake and licking the mini-vampire's neck ran through my head. "Edward is an ass."

"Rosalie is an ass."

"Jasper is uptight," I offered.

"Emmett's funny."

"Dr. Cullen is really nice, but his hands are freezing," she said. "I busted my ankle last summer and he fixed it up."

"Doctors hands are always cold. I think it's a requirement for the job." I hoped the Cullens appreciate how much I was covering for their oddities. Of course they'll probably never know.

Angela giggled while we turned left onto a dirt road. As soon as I passed the stop sign on the other side I smelled the overwhelming scent of wet dog. I'd only been alerted to the Quileute territorial boundaries for one day and here I was breaking them.

"Is this reservation land?" I asked like I didn't already know.

"Technically; the Quileute lease this area to those of us that are less than pure blood."

Taking another look at Angela's skin color, I could see where she got her tan from. It wasn't from the endless days of sunbathing.

"I'm a quarter Quileute and an eighth Makah, or something like that. Mom's the one that's all Indian proud and everythi…"

She would have gotten the chance to finish her sentence if it wasn't for the thing that slammed into the front quarter panel of my jeep. One second we were heading down the nice dirt road with a fairly nice house coming into sight not only fifty yards in front of us. The next moment we were spun to the side and I was slamming on the breaks. The sound of Angela's head slamming against the side window virtually echoed in the confines of the cabin.

I glanced her way hoping her head wasn't caved in only to find a dark-skinned, red-eyed, dreadlock wearing vampire flipping in the air over the hood and the sound of a growling wolf not too far behind.

"Oh crap."

The vamp's eyes darted to the forest and I had a split second to make a decision that very well could end my time there in Forks. Technically, I wasn't supposed to phase into my cougar form on Indian land without a member of the pack to escort me. It was a courtesy more than anything else. However, when presented with a red-eyed vampire and a bleeding human in close proximity I hoped Sam and his pack would understand that I didn't have much choice.

In the next second the vampire eyed me, measuring me up.

"She's mine," I growled as I could feel my cougar right on the edge of my skin.

It was like he didn't even hear me, so I didn't really have a choice in the matter. My door flung open and I tumbled out shedding my jacket in the process. I could hear steel scream in the air giving me all of half a second to protect Angela or lose my newest friend in the process.

Crouching back I sprang into the air exploding out of my clothes and over the jeep, swiping my six inch claws at the vampire's head. His eyes widened and I could see the panic on his face as he brought the door up to protect himself just in time. Using it as a shield he threw me back against the nearest tree. I heard and felt my spine crack, but not enough to keep me down. Scrambling up, I lunged again, but the vampire finally gave up his bloodlust in deference to his survival instinct. I did manage to sink two claws into and through his side before he blurred off into the tree line.

A moment later and two wolves, just as big as I was, jumped through the clearing. One took off after the vampire and the other skidded to a stop. Taking advantage of the lapse in time, I phased back to human so I could point into the trees.

"He went that way."

The wolf's eyes widened and he phased into a six foot plus tall Quileute that wasn't Sam. "Was she bitten?"

I shook my head. "No. The idiot ran into my car. I stopped him. I gotta get her to the hospital."

He just shot me a nod as I reached into the back seat for my Speedo. It really wouldn't do to be driving through Forks, naked.

~O~

Charlie barreled through ten minutes after we'd arrived at the emergency room door. He took in the room for a split second and then saw me there laying on a gurney with a needle stuck in my arm.

"Bells?"

I shook my head. "It's not me. Angela smashed her head in on my window. She's in the operating room with Carlisle Cullen."

His eyes narrowed as he finally figured out what I was doing there rhythmically squeezing a red squishy ball.

"She's AB positive and they're running out," I said.

"You sure that's such a good idea?"

I grimaced and whispered well under the hearing of any humans nearby. "I'm not going to sit by and let someone die because I can't spare a pint or two. Besides, Doctor Cullen said the blood type overrides the youknowwhat, and he's a doctor so…."

Charlie sighed and sat down on the chair beside the bed. "What happened?"

"Human drinking vampire being chased by wolves slammed into the jeep while I was giving her a ride home. I guess the scent of her blood was too much to ignore."

Looking to the side, he scanned the area. "I'll write it up as large deer. You haven't told anyone else about this?"

"No."

"Good. Let's keep it that way."

The nurse came by and pulled the filled bag, bandaged me up and set a glass of orange juice to the side, before dashing off.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah. I just phased to make sure he didn't make a late afternoon snack of my friend. I did manage to get two claws into him in the process."

My back stopped aching well before I we'd arrived to the hospital so I didn't have any complaints.

"Well rest up. Remember to act a little lightheaded until you get out of here."

The truth was I could probably lose closer to two pints without feeling any adverse effects. I'd most likely be dragging ass for the next couple of days, but it was doable. Shifters can handle a lot of damage. We seemed to be made exactly for that.

Charlie disappeared for a while as I _recovered_. After another thirty minutes Doctor Cullen himself came out, donning his white lab coat over a pair of scrubs. His smile was soothing as if he'd been in this same position thousands of times over the decades. There was no telling exactly how long he'd been practicing medicine. It was mind boggling that a vampire could hold it together long enough in a surgical room with all the blood being bandied about.

"How is she?"

"Thanks to you Angela will be just fine. We're stretching things with the single unit of blood you donated. I'm sure her parents will be happy you were here."

"Can I see her?"

He shook his head. "Perhaps in a day or two."

Figures. "Alright. Can you call me and let me know when. I'm not exactly sure as to what she saw and I want to head things off, if you know what I mean."

"Ah. Yes, well. That would probably be for the best."

~O~

The next day was quiet, almost too quiet. Okay, that was me being a tad melodramatic. The whole situation pretty much turned out as what you'd expect. There was chattering about Angela being in an accident and winding up at the hospital. The Cullens stared at me, probably waiting for me to go nuclear and attack the student body, well, all of them with the exception of Alice and Emmett. The large vampire didn't look like he had a care in the world except for his girlfriend or wife or whatever Rosalie was to him. Alice just looked marginally depressed.

Every once in a while I'd catch her staring at me and then looking away whenever I caught her eyes. The desire I felt for her had slipped away sometime the previous night. At least I didn't have an overwhelming need to jump her whenever she was around. I'm not saying my interest completely disappeared, but it had toned itself down to normal hormonal levels. Even that was distracting since I still considered myself a staunch heterosexual.

I'd never been one of those girls that wondered what it would be like to kiss another of my gender no matter how popular that song was a few years back. I just didn't like the soft and delicate type. I was more of a strong yet lean type. If Edward Cullen wasn't such an ass he would be the perfect guy for me. I think it's his hair that does it for me; that kind of post-coital bed head type. It gives a girl ideas, you know? That's always something to keep in mind; the best body, the best hair, the best clothes mean absolutely squat if you're a jerk. Unless you're into that sort of thing I suppose.

Alice, even with what I know about her physiology, is the soft and delicate type. I couldn't imagine her getting all rough and tumble. I think it's because of her devotion to fashion. It's difficult to picture her rolling around on the forest floor with me, growling, scratching, moaning…

_Crap_.

Okay, maybe there are still some lingering issues with the whole being in heat thing.

The second the final bell rang for last period, my phone vibrated with a text message.

_Angela is awake ~ C.C.M.D._

I could have sworn that Carlisle said it would be a couple of days. Usually a couple meant two. Maybe it was because he was no doubt centuries old and _couple_ meant something completely different back in the medieval period or something. Couple obviously meant about twenty hours. It was probably a couple of ten hour spots. Apparently the elder Cullen needed a little updating in his vocabulary. Perhaps I should give him the link to Urban Dictionary.

The wind blasting through the passenger side was really annoying me. I seriously had to get that door replaced. The quarter panel was easy enough to knock out, but I'd need a blow torch to get the door back on. Putting me in the same room with a blow torch was just asking for something to explode, most likely me. Ordinarily I'd just take the driver's side door off, since the jeep was made to allow that to happen, but with the overabundance of rain this town gets I'd be soaked. On the plus side, Angela's blood smell was almost gone.

When I pulled up to the hospital I entered through the emergency room since I had no idea where they put their head injuries. Luckily, Carlisle came through one of those automatic doors just like they have on TV. Strangely enough I didn't spend a lot of time in hospitals in my youth. Urgent care centers were more Renée's speed. A few stiches here, a gauze pad there, and a pair of crutches every so often and I was good to go. Why waste time anywhere else?

"Bella," he said as the doors whooshed open.

It didn't look like he was in a Mister Rogers mood this time around.

I glanced over to the admitting nurse who wasn't paying attention to the goings-on of the waiting room.

"What's up?"

"We may have a slight problem."

That didn't make me paranoid at all. _Liar_. "You said she's awake. Isn't that a good thing?"

Without touching me, Carlisle motioned to a different set of doors and I walked with him. They whooshed open when he hit a button the size of a hubcap on the wall. _So that's how those things worked_.

"When I arrived this morning for my shift I made it a point to stop by Angela's room to change her bandages myself."

"That was nice of you."

He gave me a small smile. "Thank you, but it's what I found underneath that gave me a moment of pause."

Arching an eyebrow I glanced at him. Apparently he wanted me to guess or something. "Was it a turkey leg, a ballpeen hammer, what?"

That actually stalled him in mid-step. Have you ever seen a vampire almost trip? That doesn't happen too often.

"No. All of her injuries were healed," he said. "There should be a three inch long surgical incision above…" Maybe it was the blank stare I was giving him, but he stopped and restarted. "There's no scar much less any evidence that I operated on her."

"Oh. Uh…"

He sighed as we turned a corner and he greeted two doctors walking the other direction. Once we were in the clear again I received some sort of explanation.

"At first I thought that the blood you donated provided had regenerative properties considering your nature, and I still can't rule that out without further testing."

"Can you bottom line it for me, Doc?" Patience was not one of my virtues.

When we stopped in front of a closed door, Carlisle turned to me and lowered his voice below human levels. "Angela's irises are red, much like yours and her temperature is elevated."

"What?"

At that very moment Charlie's words came back to haunt me. _"You sure that's such a good idea?"_

"Advanced healing, red eyes…" Carlisle whispered.

"Shit. How is that possible? You said…"

"It shouldn't. The odds of Angela having therianthrope genes that would react with your blood are astronomical."

"_I'm a quarter Quileute and an eighth Makah, or something like that."_

I was palming my face before I knew it. "She's part Quileute and Makah."

Carlisle shook his head. "Some of which have shape shifter ancestry, not therianthrope. The two are incompatible. I could sit here and give you a full transfusion of their blood and it wouldn't do a thing to you."

~O~

When we entered the room an orderly was stripping the bed. Angela's scent was still prominent, so I knew Carlisle hadn't led us to the wrong room.

"Oh, Doctor Cullen…"

Carlisle was smooth as silk, like nothing ever bothered him. "Candy, where is Ms. Weber?"

The girl shrugged and tried not to appear nervous. It wasn't working. Most of the time vampires have that effect on people. "Her mom checked her out about fifteen minutes ago. Nurse Cary's got the waver at her desk. She tried to talk her out of it, but the lady insisted."

"I'm sure she did, Candy. Thank you."

Carlisle moved to take my arm, but pulled himself back at the last moment. He knew better. Once we were back in the hall he turned to me.

"You need to find her and see if she's turned, Bella. I can't imagine the risk her family would be in if she phased during the middle of dinner without any prior knowledge."

I could. It happened to me in Phoenix. "I'm on it."

~O~

Before I had left the parking lot I had Sam on speed dial.

"Bella? What's wrong?"

See what being the pack Alpha does to you? Every call is trouble; it didn't matter who it was from. That's why I would never want that type of position. I'm not a leader who is born to take care of trouble every single day of my life, like Sam. I'm just not built that way.

"You know Angela Weber?"

There was a brief pause before he answered. "The girl in your jeep yesterday? Jake saw her."

"Yeah. Look, do you know if her ancestry included any of your shape shifter relatives?"

"What? No. Everyone is accounted for and she isn't among them. Why?"

I sighed as I hit the road and sped toward 110.

"Sunday's the full moon and I think Angela's going to turn into a Thercougar." Before he even had a chance to ask the obvious question I explained. "She's got red eyes, elevated temp, and heals really fast. That's the first sign. The full moon is when the first change happens when you're old enough unless she gets really mad or really scared."

"Dammit…"

"I'm heading over to her house right now. Can you meet me there to smooth things over with her mom so I can get her alone and find out one way or another?"

"Red eyes isn't a wolf thing; that should tell you something right there."

I really didn't want to get into some semantic debate. "You're probably right. What I'm asking is two things. One: if she is a Thercougar and she's part Quileute then is she your responsibility or mine? Two: if she's mine are we going to have problems with territorial lines? Three:"

"You said only two questions."

"I'm a woman, Sam. It's my prerogative to change my mind. Three: will you be the go-between with her mother until we sort this thing out? If she doesn't know what's going on I don't want her to think I'm screwing around with her daughter without the say so of someone she trusts."

Sam snorted at that last part. "Bella, all the tribe that's not in the know think I'm a gang leader with the tribe elder's backing. I'm not the best character reference. You really need an elder for this type of thing."

I checked my pockets; nope, no elder there. "Uh… anyone available at the moment?"

"I'll call Jake. Maybe Billy Black can meet you."

Judging from where I was already he'd be very late to the meeting. "Please tell him to hurry if he can. I'm about five minutes from her house."

"Fine."

"Oh, what about the first two questions?" I asked before he hung up.

Without any pause he answered. "If she's a wolf then she's ours. You and Charlie deal with the Thercougar issues including bringing her by and having her follow the rules. She lives on the res so that's not an issue."

At least I didn't have to tell her she had to move. "Thanks, Sam."

We rang off and I ran through all the things Charlie had to say to me over the phone when I was still in Phoenix, then I changed it all up so I wasn't as abrupt as he was. I love the man like a father, for the most part, but he had absolutely no tact for sensitive issues.

Heading down the dirt road, I stopped and threw my missing door in the back so I could get it reattached later.

The house was a simple one story on stilts since it was on an incline sitting on the side of a small hill. Thick spruce trees surrounded the area which wasn't out of the ordinary. There were a little under 1500 different types of plants in the Olympic Rainforest which Forks was right in the middle. So, me spotting a tree I was actually familiar with was a treat. There weren't any other houses within sight. For that, I was thankful. Fewer witnesses meant less police involvement, and I really didn't want to deal with an I-told-you-so Charlie at the moment. I was a big girl that could deal with my own mistakes, although I could pin most of this on Carlisle if need be. He was the one that said it would be fine for me to donate my blood.

I killed the motor and stepped out as I pocketed the keys in my jacket. That's pretty much when the screaming started. It seemed as if my bad luck was still following me around like an attention-starved puppy. Pet me, Bella! Pet me or I'll keep screwing with you!

To save time I just threw my jacket on the hood. At the rate I was going through clothes I'd have to give Alice a call pretty soon. There was no way I was going to strip down in Angela's front yard.

The door slammed open and a preppy brown haired girl ran down the step clutching her arm that was screaming and dripping copious amounts of blood. I grabbed her before she ran off on a panic.

"Get to the jeep. There's a first aid package in the back."

Something crashed inside, furniture crushed, glass breaking, chaos ensuing or something to that effect. Then a head emerged along with a low growl. Yep, it was a Thercougar. The doorway wasn't quite wide enough for her body to squeeze through that was about all that slowed Angela down to give me enough time to shed my top and kick my runners off before my cougar exploded on the scene. At least they'd be spared.

"_Jessica! I didn't mean it!"_ she yelled in my head so loud I winced.

My stance was aggressive in an attempt to cow her into thining twice about moving forward. "_Angela, chill out!"_

"_Who's…? Bella?"_

Somewhere amidst the carnage a woman's voice arose that even gave me pause, and since my cougar was ready to get down and dirty that was saying something. It was most definitely a mother's voice at the height of her anger. I was quite familiar with that because Renée had the same tone when we argued for the first time about me moving to Forks. She whipped out all three of my names in that you-will-obey-me voice that every child knows, much like now.

"Angela Denise Weber, stop where you are this instant!"

The gigantic cougar froze half-in and half-out of the doorway and her crimson eyes closed with flinch.

"_Angela, you need to phase back to your human form_," I said with as much calm as I could muster. "_Do you think you can do that for me_?"

By the time her eyes opened again I had straightened up and relaxed my posture trying to calm the situation down as much as I could.

"You get in this house and change back now, young lady!" Truly, her mom wasn't really helping the situation anymore.

"_Just relax and remember what you looked like this morning when you got home. I'm sure you looked in the mirror, right_?"

"_Uh-huh_," she returned.

"_I'll help you out. You're not alone_," I said as I approached the front steps. "Just relax and think about your normal body. Everything's going to…"

Before I had the chance to finish my sentence Angela's body blurred and her human form stood at the doorway clutching the jamb with a shaking hand. That was good enough for me. I turned around and padded back to the jeep. Jessica was in the back watching me with terror filled eyes. That's pretty much when I decided my modesty was about to take a hit. If I closed in any further, as a cougar, then she'd probably have a heart attack. In mid step I phased back and tried my best to look cool and confident.

"You stay away!"

I ignored her and opened the driver's side door to reach behind the seat for my bag. "I'm not running around here naked just so you'll feel better, Jessica. I'm just getting my clothes."

She looked scared and undecided, but probably remembered that she was bleeding from being bitten from a large cat. Her attention went back to the pressure bandage on her arm as she pushed it down harder. That gave me time to slip into my Speedo and throw a look over my shoulder to make sure Angela was still holding herself together. By this time there was a short black haired Indian lady, who I assumed was her mother, was hugging her. She could wait.

When I made it around the back of the jeep, Jessica was eying me with wariness, most likely assuming I was going to phase and eat her. I'm sorry, but short brunettes aren't my thing.

Alice's face flashed behind my eyes; her wispy hair and the way she woohoo'ed after I drove into the ditch the days before. Okay, short _human_ brunette's weren't my thing.

"Let me see," I said as I reached out for Jessica's injured arm. She flinched back, whimpering. "Don't be stupid. I'm not going to hurt you. I need to see if you have to get stiches."

"She bit me! She turned into a big cat monster and bit me. And you're a monster cat too. Is everyone a freaking monster in this town?"

I shrugged and grabbed her wrist, pulling it to me. "Pretty much. Let me guess, you're an elf."

She tried to tug her arm back, but I wasn't budging. "I'm not an elf. Do I look like I have pointy ears? Hold on… there's elves too?"

"No, just Thercougars, Werewolves, Vampires, an Ogre or two. I'd stay out of the mountains if I were you."

As far as I knew there weren't any ogres in the mountains, but it's best to dazzle the uninformed with bullcrap to keep them guessing. When I lifted the pressure bandage off and looked at the wound it had already stopped bleeding. There were two punctures on her forearm right under the elbow and they were pretty small, which wasn't exactly characteristic to Thercougars teeth. When something Jessica's size encounter's something my cougar's size, usually there would be rendering of entire arms to worry about.

"Was she fully formed when she bit you?"

That's when I got the full brunt of her scowl. "One second I was suggesting alternate cuts for her hair… have you seen what they did at the hospital? Anyway, the next second she's this big gigantic rage kitty and was using my arm as a chew toy. What does it look like? Is it bad? Will they have to amputate? I'm too cute to have a hook for an arm!"

I let go of her too the bandage with me. It was soaked which also wasn't indicative of such a small injury.

"Oh," she said with muted disappointment. "Do you have a Band-Aid? Maybe some antibiotic ointment? I'm probably going to need rabies shots too."

Rolling up the bandage I tossed it in the back of the jeep for disposal later while I sifted through the first aid kit for something much smaller. "I'm pretty sure Angela doesn't have rabies."

"This could only happen to me. Homecoming is next week and I'm going to be all marred. Mike was taking me to Port Angelus to Herman's, you know the French restaurant? I had this nice chartreuse strapless dress…"

I think I know why Angela phased well ahead of schedule. If I had to listen to this inane blathering for any longer I was going to do just the same, and I wasn't going to stop at her arm. When I selected two regular sized adhesive bandages and the tube of Neosporin I swiveled around to see if maybe I poked her hard enough she'd shut up. Imagine my surprise when the wounds were even smaller than before. My eyes shut and my shoulders fell.

_Dammit_.

While Jessica rambled on about what she was going to order at Herman's French restaurant I looked up at her eyes. There were already little red flecks appearing around the edge of her irises. At this rate we'd have the entire city of Forks transformed in under a month. This shouldn't be possible.

Dropping the bandages back in the kit I went around the side of the jeep to my fallen coat so I could retrieve my cell.

"Y'ello."

I learned my lesson. Always listen to your father when he says something wasn't a good idea. "Charlie. We have another problem."

~O~

"I can't have red eyes!" Jessica yelled. "It'll clash with my _chartreus_ dress!"

Angela palmed her face as she was bent over the front porch steps. "Priorities, Jess."

"You can wear colored contacts," I said. "Charlie's been doing it for years."

"This shouldn't be possible," he told Billy Black as the Quileute elder sat in Jake's truck. "Thercougars are a genetically created species. Only our kids can become one. I've bitten someone before and he didn't turn into a cougar."

Jake snorted derisively. "It's probably the bloodsuckers fault."

"Jake," Charlie said. I had the feeling that he blamed the Cullens for a lot of things: the weather, impotence, yadda, yadda, yadda.

"He makes a good point, Charlie. Maybe their presence caused something to change in Bella. She was hanging out with that little one for a couple of days. It's not like it's unheard of for the spirit warriors to show themselves when they're around."

"Why don't you wear contacts?"

I turned back to Angela. "They itch my eyes. It drives me crazy. Tinted glasses are easier."

Jessica pointed at me. "There see! You know how much my allergies make my eyes itch. There's no way I could wear them and deal with that."

I sighed and leaned in. "You can always say that your red eyes are contacts, that they're the in thing now."

Her mouth dropped open and I could see she was actually starting to think it over. "Maybe I could exchange the dress. Maybe that little black one; you remember Ange? With the right earrings I could pull it off."

Then she grabbed my arm. "You have to start sitting with us at lunch."

"What? No."

"You're the new girl from the big city. It'll be the only way we could pull it off. You could say that you visited L.A. and your cousin or something told you about the trend."

"No."

"Please! It's your fault I'm a monster now."

Angela's eyes ticked up to meet mine. It was also my fault she was too. "Jess, Doctor Cullen said if Bella didn't donate that blood then I'd most likely be dead right now. It's my fault I bit you."

Everyone's a martyr. "For a couple of days. If they give me any crap then I'm gone."

Jessica bounced and clapped her hands. "Awesome!"

I pointed at both of them. "Just make sure you two are at my place by six o'clock. Sunset is at six forty-one. And try your best to keep your anger in check until then."

Jessica looked down at what I was wearing. "Do I have to wear those skanky biking things too? Not like I couldn't fill them out or anything, but…"

"Please don't finish that sentence," I said through a low growl. "Wear whatever you want. I don't care. Just bring more in case you rip whatever you're wearing to shreds."

We exchanged email addresses and a promise from me to send them the spreadsheet information I'd compiled from my meetings with Charlie. It was a lot easier than sitting around with the not so human chatterbox for the next few hours. After Jessica drove off in an attempt to reach Port Angelus before dark to exchange her dress, Angela stopped me as I was heading to the jeep.

"Should I actually get one of those outfits?"

She seemed serious so I didn't snap at her. "I'd advise it. It's easier to carry it around with you in a fanny pack when you're phased, and it's stretchy. You're probably going to fill out in a few places over the next week. I grew two cup sizes and seven inches in height."

Her face turned horror stricken. Angela was already over six feet in height and that was all natural. I guessed it had something to do with her Indian heritage. There was no telling how tall she was going to get. I sympathized with her.

Once I left the adults to talk things over and Angela to clean the living room before her father came home, I headed to my own house to see if I could have a semi-normal night for once. Of course that simply wasn't meant to be.

I frowned at the incoming call on my cell.

"Hello, Alice."

"Feeling any better today?"

"Not particularly. We have two new Thercougars in Forks."

"Really?"

She sounded surprised and happy for me all at the same time. It was probably because she'd be off the hook for my heat thing.

"Angela Weber and Jessica… uh, something."

That seemed to take the wind out of her sails. "Hold on, what?"

"Can't you just smell the cougar estrogen in the air?"

"Not really, but Emmett's burning something in the back yard, so that may explain it."

"What's he burning?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Well, that depends. If it's ribs then I might be interested."

"Yes, Bella, the vampire family is cooking ribs for dinner."

"It could happen. Probably not often, but it could happen."

"Are you doing anything tomorrow night?" she asked.

"It's a full moon. I'm taking Angela and Jessica out to make sure they know how to hunt and answering any questions they have. So… yeah."

"You weren't kidding about that?"

"No."

"Can I come?"

I pulled up in front of my house, and guess who was standing on my front porch? Instead of answering her, I thumbed off the cell and dropped it in my coat pocket.

"You know, it's rude to just hang up on people when you're in the middle of a conversation," she said as I hopped out of the jeep. When she saw I was missing a door I received a raised eyebrow. "Air conditioning systems just aren't what they used to be?"

I shook my head. "Vampire tore it off and tried to eat Angela."

It was the first time I've seen Alice taken aback. Granted I hadn't known her all that long, but still.

"Didn't you say she was a Thercougar?"

"Well, she is now."

"I think I'm getting a headache," she said before rubbing her temples.

"Welcome to my world. I've been in town for less than a week, found out that werewolves and vampires exist, gone in heat, suddenly became bisexual for some unknown reason, my first human friend gets attacked by a vampire and then because of me turns into a cougar and bites her friend and turns her into a cougar. Yeah, I'm ready to go back to Phoenix now."

Alice patted my shoulder. "Just because you hit a few potholes in the road doesn't mean you shouldn't get back in the car."

"Potholes? Try landmines."

"Would it make you feel better if I kiss you?"

My brain came to a screeching halt. The record skipped. The HD screen of my life just pixilated. "Uh…"

"You know you're pretty cute when you forget to be sarcastic. You should try it more often."

"Sure."

"Sure you'll try it or sure a kiss will make you feel better?"

"Um, the second one."

My tongue subconsciously ran over my bottom lip just as Alice reached up and slid her hand to the back of my neck. Her fingers were cold against my skin, but with my increased body heat it felt like ice cubes melting on a summer's day; refreshing. Alice's eyes dropped down to my lips as mine were on hers. I watched them part ever so slightly and the very tip of her pink tongue stood vanguard between her pearly white teeth. I could almost feel my heart beating as if I was about to phase. The same excitement was there; the feeling of something animalistic about to happen.

Alice rose up on her toes and I dropped my posture slightly to meet her somewhere in the middle. At the last second her eyes rose to meet mine and I could definitely see heat forming there, heat for me, passion for what we were about to do.

And then she tilted her head and kissed me on the cheek.

"Esme always does that to make me feel better after a hard day," she said happily. "Did it help?"

"You think you're funny, don't you," I nearly hissed. Try hissing without any esses involved, and you can figure out why I wasn't very successful.

"I'm pretty sure I'm funny," she said teasingly as she backed up a few steps. "You know you still haven't asked me on that date or any lesbionic tendencies I might have. It wouldn't be proper for us to kiss… that way until those issues are dealt with."

"Lesbionic? Is that a word?"

She nodded. "I'm pretty sure that's a word. Try Googling it."

Alice was teasing me, playing it all out because she knew I was strictly hetero before I moved to Forks. There was something about this town that totally screws with the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and psychosexual mentality. She most likely thought I'd be too embarrassed to bring up the topic on my own. Nothing suppresses one's natural personality like the unknown. So, in response I did the exact opposite of what my instincts were telling me.

Taking a step forward, I narrowed my eyes and kept my voice quiet and controlled.

"Alice, do you have any lesbian or bisexual tendencies?"

She smiled brightly. "Not really, Bella. It's never come up, so to speak. I haven't really been in any personal relationships with a guy or a girl… or anything between for that matter. Not that they haven't tried over the decades, but I've always shut them down."

That stopped me in my tracks, but I pushed on. At least I'd know one way or the other if I didn't stand a chance with her so I could move on. "So if I asked you out on a date you'd say no?"

Twirling around, Alice danced a few steps away, but I followed. "It's not any fun if you already know the answer to your question."

I obviously wasn't intimidating her whatsoever with my shift in personality. "Okay. Would you like to go out on a date with me?"

She came to a stop and looked up at me. "A date date? Like a dinner and a movie date?"

"If that's what you want?"

A frown dropped over her face. "I don't eat food and I've pretty much seen all the movies I want to see. Vampire here with nothing to do, you know."

Why was she dragging this out? Was it a game to her?

"We could always go hunting."

She squinched up her face. "Hunting, for a vampire, is a very private activity."

I sighed. Obviously this wasn't going anywhere and I had better things to do than get shot down in flames by a tiny vampire that likes to play mind games.

"Fine. Well, you know, whatever."

Turning, I grabbed my backpack and headed toward the front door.

"Bella!"

I'd made it as far as the third step before I turned around. "What?"

Alice sighed dramatically. "I just wanted to see if you were serious."

"Well, I am. So there you go."

"Wait," she said before I turned resumed my exit. "Look, do you mind if we switched?"

Color me confused. "Switched what?"

"Roles." Upon seeing that I was going to need a little more than that Alice moved up to stand at the top of the steps. Her finger popped out and poked me in the chest until I took a step down and we were eye to eye. "That's better."

"I've lived for a little over a century now and in all that time I've been chased after… me. I've never really accepted any dates because humans and vampires don't mix well. We have a tendency to eat them at inopportune moments. I've pretty much stayed away to not tempt myself."

"Okay." I had no idea where she was going with any of this.

"Anyway, I've always been the one to be chased after and I'm really the kind of girl that likes to do the chasing, but nobody takes me seriously because I'm short and adorable."

I blinked. "Are you saying you want to be the guy and me be the girl?"

"What? No. We'll both be girls, but I want to be the more… um…"

"Sorry I'm not up on all the lesbian PC terms would _dominant_ be a better word?"

"That's a little pervy, but it's closer to the truth. I promise no whips and chains."

I looked up and over her shoulder, spacing out in a vision of Alice dressed up in tight black leather and high heels, then I immediately shook it out of my head. Yes, I probably spend too much time on the internet.

"I guess I just want to be the aggressor for once."

With that said I just shrugged my shoulders. "Sure. You be the… aggressor and I'll be… um, me. I guess."

"Awesome. So, do you want to go out on a date with me next Saturday, Bella?"

A thought popped into my head to be all game playing like she was doing to me earlier, but honestly I was mentally exhausted. "Saturday would be cool."

She bounced and twirled around. "Equally as awesome."

Alice leaned in a kissed me on the lips for a nanosecond before I knew what was happening. The next moment I realized she was standing by my jeep holding my key.

"I'll have Rose fix your door. She's into stuff like that. I'll bring it by Monday morning. Have fun with your new cougars tomorrow night!"


	4. Nom Nom Nom

**A/N: **Disclaimer in first chapter. Thanks ahead of time to those of you that chose to leave a review or a comment. I would really appreciate it.

**Chapter 4**

Don't you hate it when your caller ID only shows half the information you want it to?

"Who the heck is Stanley?"

I was pretty sure that I didn't know any guy by that name in Phoenix and Since I hadn't met any guys other than the Cullen family and Sam since I'd moved to Forks, I was sure it was a wrong number.

"Hello."

"Vampires?" Jessica's whiny voice came over the receiver. "You were serious about that?"

_Ah, Jessica Stanley_.

"I told you I'd answer your questions tonight. Can't I have one day where crisis and mayhem aren't laughing maniacally at my life?"

"No, seriously." Apparently I couldn't. "We're coming over right now. Angela and I have a bazillion questions, and since all of this is your fault you have to answer them. God, I'm like starving to death. Is this a werecougar thing too, because my waistline and thighs can't take this sort of abuse?"

After checking the time and realizing there was only an hour until we were supposed to meet anyway I sighed. "It's Thercougar, not werecougar. Those are two totally different species, and yes your diet is going to change. Try eating more red meat."

A sound of disgust nearly deafened me. "Look, I can't do that. When I was younger I had a moustache problem. The only meat I eat is fish and a random chicken breast in my..."

I clicked off my cell and set it on the table so I could finish my ham, bacon, and left over pork chop sandwich. Sorry, the other white meat was calling to me this particular afternoon. Two minutes went by as I swallowed my next bite and then my phone rang again.

"Sorry, the mountains around here really play hell with a cell signal," Jessica said before I even answered properly.

"It wasn't a dropped call. I hung up on you." At a scoffing noise I continued. "I don't need to know about your weird hormonal imbalances or hair growth in odd places. You're not human any longer, Jessica. If you read the information I sent you then you'd already know that over the next week you're going to gain height and muscle mass, not to mention lose fat everywhere but in your breasts, and those are going to explode. You won't have a problem with cholesterol, or fat, or calories, so eat all the red meat you can, because you'll need it."

"Hold on," Jessica said somewhat in awe. "My breasts are going to get bigger? Like how much bigger?"

"I don't know. I went up two cup sizes."

"Woohoo!"

The connection clicked off once again and I finally got the chance to finish my sandwich.

~O~

Not only did I leave behind the sun in Phoenix, I also left behind any decent radio stations. Is there something in the rules of nature or maybe in the FCC bylaws that insist on small towns having crappy radio stations? While I'm sure that country music has its place in the greater scheme of things, I'm also equally sure that fifteen country music stations is overkill. The only pop music came out of Seattle and it was full of static. The only rock station I could receive was out of Port Angeles and not only was it full of static, it was strictly classic rock, and I'm talking pre-fifties classic rock. Who listens to this crap?

If I had my jeep I could make a music run, but some over-caffeinated pixie vampire stole it, so I was stuck surfing though iTunes for the next hour downloading something decent into my phone.

It was the shave and a haircut honking in the driveway that alerted me Jessica hadn't changed her mind about intruding on my privacy.

When I opened the front door I was pleasantly surprised to see that my jeep had returned and it was whole again. There were ugly weld spots on the door hinges and they were covered in gray primer, but I had transportation once more!

Alice hopped out and did her best Vanna White routine. "Tada! Rose got bored and finished it early."

"Cool. Tell her I said thanks."

She did some sort of pointe ballet spin and leaped onto the top of the porch. "Tell her yourself on Monday. You're coming over for lunch. Esme wants to meet you."

I received a poke in the chest until I dropped down two steps to once again be at eye level with her.

"I thought vampires didn't eat."

She shrugged before leaning in and pecking me on the lips, only to pull back before things could get interesting. "Esme loves cooking even though she can't try any of it, so this gives her a good excuse."

"What about your brothers?"

Alice frowned playfully. "Don't you want to meet my parents, Bella?"

That was a loaded question if ever there was one. "I've met Carlisle already. He seems nice."

"He is, and Esme is even nicer, plus she cooks. What do you eat, by the way?"

"Um, red meat, rare."

"I'll tell her." Alice's eyes ticked behind me followed with a frown. "You've got company."

"Ugh, it's Jessica and Angela. They want more info on being a cougar."

"Can I stay?"

The thought of mixing my private life with the public one wasn't too appealing. I've recently found out that doing so can be detrimental to one's health, but since there were no humans involved and the two species involved weren't angry at each other then I really didn't have a good excuse to say no. On the plus side, I would have Alice around for a longer period of time.

"Sure, that is if you can stand to be around Jessica."

Her nose wrinkled at the thought. "At least I can intimidate her if she annoys me."

I shifted my gaze from the drive to Alice. "Does that mean you're coming out of the closet?"

It was a loaded question and I fully knew it at the time.

"Now that they're labeled in the supernatural category there's no reason to hide." She paused and then grinned like she just clued in on the joke. "You're sneaky."

Angela's Corolla emerged from the trees and when she found a spot and killed the engine I could hear Jessica's muted voice behind the enclosure of the car.

"Is Cullen a werecougar too?"

"Thercougar, Jess, and I'm pretty sure she's not since she has topaz colored eyes."

I think she agreed. "Not to mention she's short and flat chested."

Alice looked down at her chest and frowned, so me being me I had to say something. "I like your breasts just the way they are…, and that's something I never thought I'd hear myself say."

"They're B-cups. Granted, they're small B-cups, but still. It's not like I haven't hit puberty."

"OMG, I think she heard me!"

Angela turned her head to look at her friend. "Did you actually say the letters OMG instead of taking the extra half second to say 'oh my god' Who does that?"

Then there was a gasp. "Did you read the stuff about vampires in Bella's thingie?"

"Yeah," Angela said.

"Look at Alice."

Alice smirked. "Looks like the cat's out of the bag?"

"You put your cats in bags? That's really weird," I snarked. "Don't try that with me… not that you could find a bag big enough for me, but still."

Angela rolled her eyes and opened her door. "Come on. She doesn't have red eyes. That means she's safe."

I specifically wrote that topaz colored eyes were indicative to animal drinkers instead of human drinkers. There wasn't anything _safe_ about vampires at all. They were more than capable of kicking your butt as any other vamp out there. Topaz meant that they were just likely to be a tad bit more moral than your average killer.

Jessica exited and managed to stay directly behind her friend on the way over. It was like the old zombie joke all over again in relation to her friend. _If zombies are chasing us, I'm tripping you so they'll eat you first._

Of course, Alice couldn't let the opportunity to preen pass her by. "It's show and tell time today, girls. Note the overly pale skin, the preternatural beauty and grace, and the golden color of the eyes. She may drink animal blood, but don't think that she's any less dangerous than the red-eyed variety."

Angela raised her eyebrows and then looked to me for confirmation.

"Don't worry," I said. "Cougar blood, according to my dad, doesn't taste good to them."

"That's an understatement." Alice stepped down off the porch. "Human blood is like… yum! Animal blood is probably like eating a HungryMan frozen dinner, and Thercougar would be more like licking a dirty ashtray, although they smell delightful. It's the wolves that make me want to yak from the smell alone."

Jessica whipped around, scanning the tree line. "There's wolves here too?"

I sighed. "Jess, you're a Thercougar. Trust me, you're scarier."

Alice giggled. "Believe me; if they were within a hundred yards you'd smell them. Have you ever visited the SPCA on washing day? That's tame compared to their stench."

It really wasn't that bad for me. I guess that's what she meant when she said her sense of smell was much more potent than mine.

Angela looked wary, but also like she was trying to overcome an irrational fear as she approached Alice and really looked at her.

"How did we not see this? Are all the Cullens vampires too?"

Alice just smiled back. "Humans get confused when they encounter anything supernatural."

This was news to me. I listened just as attentively as she explained.

"Everything about us draws them in; beauty, grace, scent…"

She had to pause when Angela closed in even further and sniffed her.

"Oohh, you smell nice. That isn't perfume?"

My proto-girlfriend – again a phrase that was foreign to me – preened. "Nope, just the natural wonderfulness of me."

Jessica was still planted firmly behind her friend, but took the chance to lean in and sniff as well. "I don't smell anything."

"You were just bit yesterday," I said with a guess. "The week I turned certain traits popped up before others. Your eyesight will get better, especially at night; you'll get stronger too. But you'd know this already if you read the stuff I sent you."

"Seriously," she scoffed. "It's like reading a how-to guide and those are so boring. Can't you just like condense it or something?"

Angela turned around and glared at her. "And you're at the top of our class? Don't you ever study?"

"Eidetic memory; mnemonics rock my brain. School is easy."

"I hate you." Angela swiped at her, but Jessica danced away at the last second with a smile on her face.

~O~

After answering the girls' questions, most of which were already posted in my version of an Idiot's Guide to being an oversized Cougar we retreated to the back yard. The sun had already gone down and moonrise was quick to follow. Why this had some mysterious effect on Therianthropes first change I had no idea. It happened to me and Charlie said it happened to him and his father as well, so I took it as gospel.

Alice perched herself on the roof of my house, since we had no idea what her presence would do to newly phased cougars. I was busy arranging my fanny pack around my neck, as was Angela, but Jessica was having trouble stuffing a pair of warm ups in such a small pocket. Eventually she managed.

"Angela," I said singling her out. "You're first since you've done this before."

I didn't even have a chance to say anything before she started stripping out of her clothing. Apparently, the newest member of our little group has no issues with nudity. See what years of participating in public school gym classes has on a poor girl? I averted my eyes.

"Okay, what do I do?" she asked.

"Just the reverse from yesterday. Think of how it felt being a cougar, how everything smelled, how…"

I didn't even get the next sentence out before Angela phased right there and dropped to all fours. Her head whipped back and forth accompanied by a strong hacking.

"Wow, she's big!"

I glanced over at Jessica who had retreated several paces, probably so she wouldn't get bitten again. When I took a look at the cougar again I noticed she didn't seem to be quite as large as she was the first time I saw her. It may have just been the perspective, since I was phased at the time.

She paced back and forth, sniffing and snuffing at the ground and air before she approached me. I held a hand out so she could get my scent and then I ran it over her head, briefly scratching behind her ears. Her cougar's hair was wiry but smooth at the same time. It was something I didn't notice about myself when I was phased, so I took my time and petted Angela's neck.

"Awkwarrrd."

Looking up, I watched as Jessica seemed uncomfortable with me petting her best friend. Alice giggled from the roof at the same time.

After sending her a mild glare, I stepped back and centered Jessica in my sights. "Alright. Your turn."

She cocked her head and sent me a frustrated look. "What am I supposed to do, hello?"

That was a good point. She hadn't had the chance to phase out of anger or some other heated emotion. The moon was just peeking out above the tree line, so it wasn't much incentive apparently.

"Try looking at Angela and imagining yourself like her, except really think about changing your body like hers."

We must have stood there another five minutes while I watched Jessica's face change expression a good ten times before I called a halt to any more.

"You look like you're constipated. Quit pushing so hard."

She turned around and pulled on her hair in frustration. "Ugh! It's like it's right there, you know? I can feel it, but it won't come out."

Pondering that for a moment, I glanced up at Alice who was crouched there patiently waiting for something to happen.

"Maybe you just need some incentive," I said. "Fear is usually a good one."

Alice grinned and gave me a single nod before she leaped up off the roof in a high arc. On the way down she bared her teeth and raised her hands up in claw-like fashion. As soon as she hit the ground a ravenous hiss erupted from her mouth, inches away from Jessica's face.

"YEEEEAAAAAAAAAA!" Jessica screamed and literally exploded out of the top of her cheap sundress that she'd brought along for the occasion. Apparently nudity was a big deal to her. I could empathize.

Backward she propelled a good ten feet, bouncing off a thick tree trunk while phasing, but for some reason her sundress got caught up with her legs and became a tangled mess. Angela, Alice, and I watched as a black lump of fur rolled around on the ground hissing and hacking. It was like a train wreck; we couldn't stop watching.

"Something went horribly wrong, I think," Alice said dumbfounded.

Jessica wasn't the size of my cougar, and she wasn't even a slightly smaller version like Angela's. Instead, her body was maybe two feet long and stood maybe a foot and a half off the floor of the forest. I'm guessing here, because she was still rolling around ripping her dress to shreds and growling like she was in the fight of her life.

Eventually, there wasn't anything left but a mass of inch long scraps of fabric and a wildly ticked off mini cougar-sized Jessica standing there with her legs splayed apart, panting as if she'd just run a marathon.

I just pointed at her. "I'm getting you a big ball of yarn for a Christmas present."

~O~

Angela took to being a cougar just as well as I did instinct-wise. With a little practice and mentoring from Charlie and me she'd be just fine. Jessica, on the other hand was a mess. Between Angela and me we cornered a total of two raccoons and a squirrel for Jess to pounce on and eat, but she missed every single time scaring them off in the end. Eventually, I pounced and killed one for her so she could get her energy back.

"_Oh nom, nom, nom; this is so good_."

Angela hacked and then looked at me. "_Did she just say nom, nom, nom? Who does that_?"

I sat on my haunches and looked her way. "_You did good tonight, Ange. If you want to take off I'll make sure she gets home_."

"_You sure_?"

I nodded and then lay down. "_We're cool_."

"_Okay_."

I watched as she disappeared into the trees and waited until Alice emerged to sit cross legged beside me. I kind of leaned into her subconsciously and sighed when she started running her fingers through the hair at my neck and between my shoulder blades.

Jessica must have been really hungry because she was still tearing into the fat raccoon. That was probably why she was having so much trouble. I know I get jittery and scatterbrained whenever I deprive myself. The first few times I changed in Phoenix it was horrible, and I was constantly hungry.

"_More_!" Jessica whined.

"_There's two squirrels to your right up in the tree_."

She turned her head and scanned the upper limbs until she spotted the ones I told her about. A second later she was scampering up the trunk and chasing one of them to the outer limb. Squirrels, being the naturally manic creatures they are jostled back and forth until it realized that it was about to get munched and made a leap for another tree. Jessica pounced and caught it midair but apparently forgot she was twenty feet above the forest floor.

"Ouch," Alice said with a wince as the squirrel and mini-panther hit.

"_Oww_," Jessica moaned. "_Come here you little shit_."

~O~

"Thanks for letting me tag along tonight. It was educational… and a little revealing."

I glanced down to follow Alice's eyes to the skin tight Speedo. "Uh… no problem. So, I'll uh… see you tomorrow at your place?"

Leaning in, Alice gave me another peck on the lips, which I was becoming quite frustrated with. "Eleven o'clock."

Before I could lean in to grab a last kiss, there was a whoosh of air and she was gone.

"Rawr!" Glancing to the left, I saw Jessica perched on the porch railing with an angry look on her mini-panther face.

"Just relax and think of your human body, Jess. This isn't brain surgery.

After another few minutes with no results we went inside and I showered while Jessica/mini-cougar lounged in front of the TV watching reruns of _Vampire Diaries_. When I returned, decked out in a pair of yoga pants and a loose cami I sat next to her on the couch and never noticed when I started petting her like a large house cat. Before long I almost forgot there was a semi-human girl underneath the black fur. She stretched out and moved up against my leg to lay her head on my thigh, and that's how I wound up falling asleep.

Imagine my surprise to wake up the next morning with a full bodied naked girl curled up in my lap. Sometime over the night she'd gotten cold, I hoped. God forbid I got involved with another girl in less than a week. Further forbid that it was her of all people.

"Jess," I said with a moderately uncomfortable tone. "Wake up."

"Gnnn. Mom, there's no school today," she mumbled. "It's a holiday."

I cleared my throat. "I'm not your mom, and you're naked, by the way."

Her eyes fluttered open and a confused look dropped over her face. "Bella? What are… OMG!"

Jessica twirled away and fell off me and the couch simultaneously. As she scrambled to cover herself I reached up and tossed her a throw before she exploded from sheer embarrassment.

"You realize that you're texting what you're saying, right?"

"This never happened," she said as she climbed to her feet. "I can't believe this happened! I'm not a lesbian. God! Mike would totally freak. You're not going to say anything, right?"

I just glared at her. "We didn't have sex last night. Get over yourself."

"We didn't?" Jessica almost looked disappointed. Almost; like it was an insult that I didn't find her attractive enough even though she didn't swing that way to begin with. "Oh… okay. I'm gonna go get changed."

She didn't get three feet before she stopped. "Oh look! My breasts are fuller. Awesome!"

My phone chirped that there was a text waiting for me. Reaching over I looked for who it was from.

_Why is there a naked girl in your house that isn't me, Bella? D:_

That was a really good question come to think of it. My thumbs flew over the keys.

_J couldn't phase back last night until she was asleep, but if you're offering… ;P_

It was so much easier to flirt when I didn't have to look at her face at the same time.

_You need to hurry if you're going to drop your newest kitty off and make it over here on time_.

I looked up at the clock by the door and noted that it was almost ten already.

_:3_

I tossed the cell on the side table and rushed into my bedroom to see what today's outfit consisted of. The last few days, Alice's predetermined wardrobe choices had been fairly tame, mostly consisting of pants of some type and a reasonable top. While they weren't exactly what I would have chosen if I were shopping they at least stayed in the general theme of my lifestyle. This time I was out of luck; before me hung something decidedly feminine.

The black leggings I could deal with, though they would obviously be form fitting. It was the faux leather peplum top that had me on edge. It had a high rounded neckline which was fine, but it was the cap sleeves and flared below the waist which would make me look almost dainty. At least I didn't have a problem with the ballet flats that were underneath. For someone that usually wore ratty jeans and a word-of-the-day t-shirt the outfit was a little overdone. Since I was meeting her parents as potential dating material I just sighed in resignation and went with what Alice chose for me.

Jessica was just getting out of the shower when I sat down to brush my hair. I played with a little eyeliner and dabbed some neutral colored lipstick on just to add a tiny amount of tint to my face. That was about all I could handle. Makeup and I just didn't see eye to eye.

"That's cute."

My eyes tilted up in the mirror to see Jessica running her fingers through her wet hair for some semblance of normalcy.

"Lunch date," I said keeping it simple.

"So, you and Alice, huh. Who would have seen that one coming?"

"Keep it to yourself, Jessica, or else everyone finds out you were naked while on top of me."

Her eyes widened and she immediately mimicked zipping her lips. "No need to get snippy. Thanks for the boobs by the way."

I snorted and shook my head. "Thank Angela. She's the one that bit you."

Ten minutes later after I dropped her off at Angela's house at her insistence, I turned back around and headed to the Cullen house. I still had five minutes to go before they were expecting me. I guess Alice really did see the future.

I felt really uncomfortable, like I was already experiencing dating jitters, and it was compounded with the whole same sex thing. I didn't know if the Cullens were pro-gay or anti-gay so any plans were tossed out the window. Then there was the whole Edward and Jasper anti-Bella contingent that I had to deal with as well. On the whole, it looked to be a rather nerve-wracking lunch. Maybe they were cooking ribs!

When I made it up into their drive, I almost had to slam on the brakes, because I was distracted by the über-cute girl at the top of the steps. She was wearing a flared navy skirt with little white polka dots and a matching smocked top leaving her shoulders, arms, and most of her legs bare to the world. I didn't think that there was anyone paler than me in existence, but Alice put me to shame. The thing was she could pull the look off. I didn't have an excuse. It was the heels that made me sit up and take notice. It looked as if she was balancing on the tips of her toes, the heels were so high. I had no idea how she did it and not break her ankles, but I guess that being a vampire has its perks sometimes.

Alice waited for me to ascend the stairs before saying anything. Her wide overexcited grin was welcome enough. It was then that I noticed the big bow at her waist, cocked to one side, which screamed 'I'm adorable. Look at me!' And she was; Alice was adorable, and beautiful, and...

"You look great, Bella."

I stopped at the last step before the landing, staring at her eye to eye. "So do you. I mean…"

She grinned happily and took my hand lacing her fingers with mine. "Come on. Everyone's waiting."


End file.
